Draught of Living Death
by olivieblake
Summary: A companion to Amortentia. Some love stories are beautiful, some are cautionary tales; all of these are both. Romantic short stories, multiple pairings, and mature themes—for when you crave a little darkness.
1. Soulless

**Draught of Living Death**

 **Summary:** _A companion to **Amortentia**. Some love stories are beautiful, some are cautionary tales; all of these are both. Romantic short stories, multiple pairings, and mature themes - for when you crave a little darkness. _

**Disclaimer:** I do not own these characters. Credit where credit is due, Joanne Rowling.

 **A/N:** This short story collection (one shots and drabbles) is the darker, angstier counterpart of my humor collection, _**Amortentia.**_ That is not to say there won't be any humor here, but it should be assumed that ALL stories in this collection contain mature themes and moral grey areas.

There will be multiple pairings in this collection. Each story stands alone unless otherwise specified.

 _Jan 24, 2017:_ I will be posting eight one shots to the collection for each day leading up to my birthday on January 31. Thanks for joining me!

* * *

 **Soulless**

 _Pairing:_ Harmony (Harry x Hermione)

 _Universe:_ Post-War AU

 _Rating:_ M for language, sex, violence

 _Summary:_ Voldemort may have killed Harry Potter, but Hermione will do whatever it takes to get him back.

* * *

 _When I saw the green light strike your chest I thought I felt my own soul vacate my body - but I could not have known then how true that really was._

* * *

She squinted up at the glowing figure presiding over the darkly cavernous room, knowing with an intangible - and, presently, indeterminable - certainty that she was well below the surface of any familiar terrain. It had been days of walking, of near delirium, and then, precisely as the stories had been told for centuries, she had woken up here, alone and shivering on the cold stone floor. The assembled figures around her - a hawkish court - eyed her guardedly, whispering to each other, clearly waiting impatiently for her to wake; she had stirred, they had gasped, and an uncomfortable staring had instantly commenced.

He, the judge, was starkly pale - almost blue - governing his murmuring court with an eerie, unsettling calm. She, the penitent - _perhaps_ , she thought, _or else livestock_ \- submitted herself to judgment on her knees and slowly bowed her head, waiting in desperation and in supplication; silently considering the weight of her decisions.

 _Don't do it,_ Ron had pleaded with her, _it's dangerous, Hermione - I know it's hard without him, but we have to move on -_

 _Move on_ ; as though such a thing were possible. As though she had not dreamt of him every night, of his boundless fall and her helpless paralysis. Always the same nightmare; always the same reality. Pain, whether sleeping or waking.

 _I have to go after him,_ she argued wearily; weary of the argument, weary from the loss. _I have to, Ron, it's Harry -_

 _I know it's Harry,_ Ron retorted sharply, and she could read the hint of bitterness in him, the stab of pain; that old insecurity, she knew, that he had never been enough. _I know, Hermione,_ Ron protested, softening, _and I miss him too -_

Not like she missed him, she wanted to say. Ron was saddened, wilted, delicately injured; he mourned the loss of his friend, his brother. _Her_ emptiness, though, was consuming. Devouring. Harry's absence had meant an incurable void.

 _I have to,_ was all she said, and Ron had eventually managed a nod, understanding in his way, in his practiced resignation - but still, he hadn't come, and despite her present fear, she was glad of it.

It was better that way, she knew. She momentarily imagined Ron beside her now; pictured him hesitating fragilely, burdened by indecision and his constant desire to run, and immediately shook herself of the thought, silently pardoning him. There was a reason there had been three of them. There was always one to be loyal, one to be clever, and one to be brave when the others would fail - and so she imagined Harry instead. Pictured him, unbending until the end, and knew without hesitation that he would have done the same for her; and so she bore her flimsy imitation of his courage, waiting on her knees.

"How did you find me?" the figure demanded sharply, interrupting her thoughts. She opened her mouth to answer, but was promptly cut off by a careless flick of his wrist. "Nevermind," he sniffed. "I can see as much. You found it in a _book_."

"Yes," she said hoarsely, "a book." She shifted her shoulders back, glancing up at him. "And it said," she ventured, finding her voice and drawing forth from her tireless recitation of facts, "that if I struck a deal with you - "

"A deal," the figure scoffed, looking ruffled; he, either judge or deity, soured in displeasure, glowering at her as he cut her off. "As though I am some kind of troll under a bridge to be bargained with."

She winced; she had never been particularly talented with communication. "I meant," she began uncertainly, but he cut her off with a glance.

"I'm a _businessman_ ," he informed her, brandishing a snobbish affectation. "I accept only one form of payment."

At the prospect of this - of the potential for _payment_ \- the whispering around her ceased. The translucent figures leaned in, waiting; in truth, even she was relieved.

 _This_ , at least, was a concept she understood.

"If I pay," she said carefully, swallowing her misgivings before glancing up at him, "if I give you what you want, then - "

"Yes," he confirmed briskly, his eyes narrowing from afar. "I'm not an unreasonable being. If you are willing to pay the price, you may obtain what you desire." He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers against his lips. "Well?" he said, prompting her with a gesture. "What is it you offer?"

"Oh," she said, feeling her heart skip. "Well, um - "

She sucked in a breath, uncertain.

"Whose soul is it that you offer for his?" the judge prodded imperiously. "Your own? You realize, then," he informed her, and the room filled with a low buzz of cackled mocking, "that in doing so, you will have died for him?"

She shut her eyes, summoning her memories, imagining the many times she'd thought she would have died beside him. _I'll go with you,_ she heard herself say, and then -

"If it's me for him, I'll do it," she said, her eyes fluttering open. "If that's the price, I'll pay."

Around her, curious mutters crescendoed to a dull roar and the judge licked his lips, thinking. "Hmm," he murmured thoughtfully, cocking his head to look at her. "Interesting."

"Interesting?" a member of the audience repeated, scoffing. "Hardly."

"I agree. What fun is there in that?" another demanded, looking sulkily displeased. "I dare say that's no price at all if it's so freely given."

"Indeed," another contributed impishly. "There must be _more_ , your Eminence, or else - "

"Silence," the judge barked sharply, waving his hand. "You," he said, once again fixing his unsettling gaze on her. "You say you'd willingly trade your soul for his?"

"Yes," she said, swallowing nervously. "Yes, I would."

"Do you not value your life?" he demanded. "Or does some other compulsion propel you?"

"Er," she said, forcing hesitation down her throat. "It's - he's - "

"Yes?" the judge prompted. " _Speak_ , girl - "

"For him," she said hastily. "For Harry, I'd - " she stopped, feeling the consummate silliness of _he's my friend_ suddenly turn to ash on her tongue. "I'd do anything for him," she finished unimpressively, and despite her lack of monumental rhetoric, the judge's smile broadened slowly.

"Hmm," he murmured again, and she felt a tingling thrill of dread. "For an intent so pure, perhaps I'll show some mercy, then," he mused softly, as chatter erupted around the courtroom. "SILENCE," he roared a second time, permitting the murmurs to abruptly dissolve before gesturing to a waif-like figure on his right, beckoning for them to rise.

"The rules of transactions are simple," the judge said, orating as the waif transcribed. "For every soul that enters, one soul must remain." He glanced at Hermione. "Do you dispute the terms?"

"No," she said, shifting anxiously from where she knelt. "But - "

"Let the transaction be this, then: a division of souls," the judge proposed, and a startled burst of whispers rose again, "wherein the supplicant" - he gestured to her - "will vacate half her soul, as will the host, the remainder of which will be shared - "

"Half," she echoed, startled. " _Which_ half - "

"Does it matter?" the judge interrupted, his teeth cutting against his thin lip as he smiled insincerely. "Is any fraction of one's being more valuable than the others?"

"I - no," she said, frowning, "I just - "

"Then you agree," he ruled, slamming down an opalescent gavel. "Two halves for a whole, with one soul between them" - _wait,_ Hermione mouthed, the calculations amounting to addled questions in her mind to no apparent reaction, _one soul, but then_ \- "FETCH HIM," the judge shouted, and a hazy arch appeared to her left, revealing a familiar silhouette within its confines.

She blinked, her vision slowly clearing, her misgivings dissipating with the smoke; a rush of blood to her head, a hitch in her breath -

"Harry," she whispered, scrambling to her feet. " _Harry -_ "

He stepped slowly - unsteadily, as though regaining ownership of his stride - into the light, the glow radiating from the curves of his shoulders. He was precisely the same as she remembered, still grimy from the rubble of the castle, sweat still glistening on his forehead as he stepped, each one more certain than the next, rhythmically closing the distance between them -

"Wait," the judge called, and one of the many iridescent figures stepped in front of her, halting her stumbled leap towards Harry to thrust a silvery-clawed hand into the basin of her chest, yanking the breath from her lungs.

"There," the judge pronounced definitively. "Payment complete - "

But she couldn't hear him, couldn't bring herself to process what, if anything, had been taken from her; she could only hear the dull roar in her ears, could only see the smile on Harry's face, swimming in her vision as she collapsed against him - an ecstatic, breathless cadence of _Harry, Harry, Harry -_

She felt his arms close around her, enveloping her - _what is a love story,_ she heard, a haughty whisper that soared through the hollow of her mind, _if not the intertwining of two souls? -_ and felt a wave of nausea force her to her knees as everything around them went black.

* * *

When she woke he was sitting beside her, staring at her.

"You came for me," he said, in rapturous disbelief, and she felt her heart twist and leap; a stuttered sprint at the sight of him, at the familiar sound of his voice.

"Of course," she breathed helplessly, reaching out for him. "Of _course._ "

"But I failed you," he murmured, stroking her hair as her head fell against his shoulder. "I failed you, didn't I?"

"You didn't," she assured him. "You _didn't_ , Harry - "

"He won," he croaked matter-of-factly, his voice still raspy from underuse. "He won, and so I failed."

"No," she said, aghast, pulling back to look at him, but he tightened his arms around her. She breathed him in, waiting, words of reassurance caught in her throat; she opened her mouth to speak, rooting around for the _right thing to say,_ but was cut off by the low thrum of his voice in her ear.

"I won't fail you again," he whispered, and she shuddered in his arms, succumbing to a sudden unexpected chill.

* * *

"The Order - or what's left of it, anyway," she mumbled sadly, after they'd apparated to the Forest of Dean, "travels in packs. We'll meet them at their next stop, but until then, I've opted for another camping trip." She held up her bag, grinning at him. "Tent, for old time's sake?"

A faint smile tugged at his lips. "Mm," he agreed, his eyes never straying from hers.

She glanced back at him, suddenly feeling shy as she tucked a curl behind her ear. "How was it?" she asked, her voice a girlish whisper.

"Death, you mean?" he asked, and she nodded, feeling silly.

"You don't have to answer," she said quickly, "I mean, I'm sure you don't want to, so - "

"Cold," he supplied. "Sort of . . . vacant." He swallowed, looking far away. "Lost," he added quietly.

"Lost?" she repeated, and he nodded. "Like, in a strange place?"

He shook his head. "More like empty," he clarified, frowning with thought. "And a bit like I was waiting for something."

"Waiting for something?" she murmured, watching curiously as the memory seemed to darken against his expression.

He watched her face for a moment, considering her, and then shrugged. "Or someone," he said neutrally, his gaze falling to the sudden thudding pulse beneath her chest.

* * *

" _How goes it?" the judge said gleefully, staring at her with an undisguised hunger; an unsettling greed. "Is he as you remember?"_

She woke up in a cold sweat, jolting upright in the tent.

She heard movement beside her and caught sight of his outline from the dim light of the tent flap, her eyes adjusting to the dark. "Bad dream?" he asked, glancing over at her.

"Harry," she sighed, and he stepped from the opening of the tent towards her bed, lingering a few feet away. "I guess so."

He said nothing for a moment, watching her from afar.

"Take it off," he murmured.

She blinked. "What?" she asked, then frowned, wondering if something was wrong. "Harry, is everything - "

"I said," he repeated, "take it _off_. The sweater," he clarified, taking a few strides to close the distance between them and settling himself at her side. He reached out, fingering the hem of her collar; she looked down at the old _R_ sweater she wore, the item so familiar she scarcely bothered to acknowledge it against her skin. The color was faded from countless washes; the smell of it was as warm and comforting as its owner.

 _Why_ , she wanted to ask, but nothing came out, the word trapping itself between her teeth with a shuddering gasp as Harry tightened his grip on her collar, pulling her towards him.

"You're not his," he whispered, his gaze slipping along the arch of her brow and settling on her lips, the space of a breath between them. "You never were."

Her heart sped, the clang of it ricocheting in her chest. "Harry," she stammered, trying to draw moisture to her mouth. "What are you saying?"

He met her eye, his knuckles glowing white against the scarlet thread. "You're not his," he said again, his voice a low hiss in the darkened room. "You're _mine_."

Silence pulsed warningly between them; _Harry,_ she mouthed, but no sound emerged. He licked his lips, rising slowly to his feet.

"Go back to sleep," he told her quietly, but she lay awake for hours, thinking of his fingers against her neck.

 _Is he as you remember?_

* * *

" _Did I say it was mercy?" the judge asked, smiling down at her. "Pity that you never asked if I was honest."_

They found the bodies where the Order camp should have been; strewn around haphazardly, half-trampled, littered amidst the evidence of struggle and flight. She stepped over Hannah Abbott's body, over Cho's and Michael's and Anthony's, searching for hints of red hair and feeling a dual blow of panic and relief as she found none.

"Harry," she said hoarsely, bending to check Neville's pulse and choking on sorrow as a telling swell of nothing rose against her fingers. "What do you want to do?"

The glint in his eye - the flash in the green - never wavered. "Hermione," he said, the smile she'd loved for seven years twitching unexpectedly at the corners of his mouth, "I think I want to make them bleed."

 _Did I say it was mercy?_

* * *

" _Souls are such fragile things, aren't they," the judge sighed, tsking his lofty disdain. "Ultimately, they're only slaves to their containers."_

It had been a week, and still there was no sign of Ron or the others. The dreams, however, seemed to increase in frequency, to surge in intensity.

 _You're mine,_ Harry said in her sleep, and she woke to his eyes on her.

"I want to find them," he'd said, and so they'd gone back to the source; back to Hogwarts. They apparated to Hogsmeade and slid - with a careful, practiced invisibility - into the Forbidden Forest, setting up camp in the woods.

"It's too dangerous to do anything right now," she said, glancing up at the castle's towers that rose above the trees. "We'll have to see how things are going first."

"I agree," he said neutrally. "We can't afford any mistakes."

She hesitated, reading into the remark. "You didn't make a mistake," she ventured tentatively. "You _sacrificed_ yourself for us, Harry, it wasn't a mistake - "

"Not that," he said sharply. "All the other times. Every time I was close and I chose to disarm or to stun instead of - "

He trailed off, eyeing her warily.

She swallowed. "Harry," she said carefully, and there was something about the way his name sounded on her tongue now; in the past, it had been comfort and teasing and admonishment and devotion - it had taken on countless forms - but now it was something else. It was low and tactile, rich and savory; _you're mine,_ he'd said, and now she said _Harry_ , and somehow it amounted to the same. "You don't mean - "

"We should find Ron," he interrupted, clearing his throat. "Right?"

Silence throbbed between them.

"Right," she agreed, watching his fingers twitch against his thigh.

 _They're only slaves to their containers._

* * *

The longer they were alone, the more things started to shift.

" _Harry," she gasped, feeling his fingers close possessively around her throat. "Harry, are you sure - "_

" _You're mine," he whispered, his hand slipping to the curve of her breast to pinch at her nipple, to toy with her like she was his to command. "Say it, Hermione - "_

" _But Ron," she protested weakly, his lips finding their way to her neck as his hand dropped to her thigh; she burned under his touch, felt him sear the flimsy layer of skin to grasp at the core of her underneath, blazing for him._

" _Did you go to hell and back for him?" Harry countered roughly, thrusting her back; she parted her legs helplessly, wrapping them around his hips as he hoisted her up, fitting the hardness of himself against her. "No," he answered for her, giving her a punishing thrust, "you didn't."_

" _Hell," she murmured, shaking her head as his lips traveled across her clavicle. "I didn't - "_

" _Didn't you?" he murmured, and the moment she let out a moan, the moment she gave in - her head falling back, her breath catching in her lungs to choke her, trapped despite the desperate parting of her lips - she felt reality descend. Slow at first, and then a rapid crash over her head; like a wave, like a wreck, like a storm -_

"Bad dream?" he asked, his gaze snagging as he watched her chest rise and fall, devolving to a shallow gasp.

"Bad dream," she whispered in agreement, touching her fingers to her lips.

* * *

"They must be using the castle for something," Hermione murmured, watching from behind the Hog's Head's far wall. "Death Eaters seem to come and go at all hours of the day."

"You think he's in there?" Harry said in her ear, shifting behind her from their hiding spot. She felt his chest against her back and fought a shiver.

"Maybe," she whispered. "Though I don't think it's worth going in unless we can confirm."

"Wish I had my dad's cloak," Harry muttered. "I know a disillusionment charm would do the same thing, but - "

"No, I understand," she told him, shifting to face him. "I know."

He searched her face, his gaze falling on her lips as he swallowed. "You always do, don't you," he remarked. "You always have."

She felt her breath turn violent, rising up in her lungs. "Not always," she reminded him. "Don't forget the times I tormented you with my pestering - the tasks, remember, and the memory - "

"Things would have been different if I'd listened to you," he told her, a bare sincerity materializing as he looked at her. "I should have - "

He broke off, alarmed, falling silent as footsteps echoed near them. He shifted closer against her, pressing a finger to her lips in warning as they listened to someone head their way; she nodded, waiting, with her chest pressed to his.

As the would-be intruder moved away, Harry looked down at her again, seeming to register their closeness. He slid his finger from her mouth to brush his thumb across her lip, a reverent, careful study; he watched the motion, fascinated, his hips still flush against hers, and she held her breath, waiting.

He leaned towards her, his breath skating across her lips, and then pulled away, taking a step back.

"We should go," he said. "Dangerous here."

 _They're only slaves to their containers -_

"Dangerous," she agreed, and they disapparated back to the forest.

* * *

" _This isn't real," she protested weakly, digging her nails into his chest as he kissed her neck. "This is - I don't know - some tricky river god hallucination, some cruel price we pay for having bartered with our souls - "_

" _Is it?" Harry asked, sinking his teeth into her shoulder. "Or is it who we really are?"_

" _One soul between us," she murmured, gasping as she found herself torn bare and pressed against him, "does that mean you want this too?"_

" _Don't you know," he said, bending to kiss a heated trail down her torso. "Hermione," he whispered to the curve of her thigh, "don't you already know?"_

"Hermione," he said, reaching out to grip her arm. "You're dreaming again."

She inhaled sharply, her eyes snapping open to take in the sight of him beside her. "Sorry," she mumbled, and his lips slipped upwards in a reassuring smile.

"Not a problem," he said. "I just" - he paused, shrugging - "didn't want to leave you trapped in a nightmare, that's all."

"Right," she agreed, struggling to sit up. "That's - yeah. Thank you," she managed faintly, and he nodded.

"I thought I heard something outside," he commented, glancing at the tent's entrance. "Possibly someone in the forest."

"What?" Hermione exclaimed, shoving the covers aside to clamber to her feet. "I mean, I'm sure the protective spells will hold, but - "

"That wasn't really what I was thinking," Harry interrupted, cutting her off. "I was actually wondering if - "

He paused, hesitating; before she noticed what she was doing, she had reached forward, brushing her fingers comfortingly against his arm.

"Tell me," she coaxed gently, and he swallowed, his gaze travelling down to where they touched.

"I thought," he began quietly, "that it might be someone who could be helpful to us." He shifted, not meeting her eye. "Someone to keep us informed about what's going on. Potentially," he added, straightening, "someone we can" - he paused, coughing - " _use_ , I suppose."

"Well, sure," Hermione agreed, frowning; sensing that she hadn't gathered all the pertinent information. "But what are the chances it's anyone we can trust?"

Harry grimaced, appearing to choose his words carefully. "What if," he proposed slowly, "we had a way of ascertaining that trust was not a factor?"

She stiffened, sensing something unpleasant.

"Ascertaining," she mused tangentially, avoiding the question. "Not much of a Harry word, is it?"

"It's not much of a Harry idea," he admitted, and she bit her lip, finding her suspicions confirmed. "But I don't want to do this like last time," he said emphatically, rising to his feet and pacing the floor. "I don't want to sit around and wait to fall into someone's hands only to fail _again_. This time I want to have a _plan_ , to have some information. This time," he ranted bitterly, fury glinting in his eye, "I want - "

He paused, grimacing. "I want _control_ ," he finished, and she only realized she'd been holding her breath when his gaze fell listlessly on hers.

She gave it a moment, waiting for something; for a warning blow from her conscience, for a tap on the shoulder from her better judgment, for a whisper from her compassion. Something, _anything_ , to remind her what they stood for, what they were, who they'd always been -

 _And how_ , she reminded herself coldly, _they'd done all that last time, and she'd only lost him in the end._

"Why wait for someone to find us?" she asked suddenly, feeling something inside her shift. "If you want control," she said, meeting his eye, "why not have your choice?"

He smiled.

They settled on Scabior. A Snatcher, and therefore useful; a frequenter of Hogsmeade's more potent sources of Firewhisky, and therefore an easy target. His ears and eyes were about as valuable as any she and Harry could expect to stumble upon, and so they'd laid a simple trap, putting a plan into motion.

She watched Harry cast the _Imperius_ curse and wondered why she felt such a resounding hollow of nothing.

 _Did I say it was mercy?_

* * *

"There are Death Eaters missing from the castle," Scabior muttered to them, his eyes glassy. "Rumor has it they've gone to the forest."

"Defected, you mean?" Hermione asked, glancing at Harry as Scabior grunted his acknowledgement. "What does that mean for us?"

"Well, if there's only a _rumor_ they've defected, they could be helpful," Harry judged, shrugging. "We could send them back. Use them to plant a false trail."

"What if we accidentally lead You-Know-Who to a _real_ trail?" Hermione asked nervously. "We don't know where the others are - "

"We'll have to work that out when we get to it," Harry cut in grimly, tapping Scabior's forehead. "Either way, that's enough from you. Keep your head down until we call again."

"Mm," Scabior vacantly agreed, collapsing in a heap as Harry withdrew his wand.

* * *

"Wait," Theodore Nott begged, his hands raised as he stared up at them. "Potter, Granger - you don't fucking understand - "

Harry flicked his wand, slicing at Nott's cuff; the snake and the skull peaked through and Nott let out a strangled cry. " _Wait -_ "

"Why should we?" Harry asked gruffly, glancing between Nott and Goyle. "I assume you have one, too," he added, and with another flick of his wand, Goyle's Mark was visible from a tear in his sleeve. "Mm, pity," Harry determined, pursing his lips and sighing in feigned disappointment. "Seems your Lord has let his recruitment standards go a little slack since my death."

"He killed Draco, too," Nott gritted out from his knees. "This isn't what it fucking looks like, Potter, I _swear_ \- "

"What does it look like to _you_ , Hermione?" Harry mused, tilting his head to look at her. She glanced warily at him, her wand still aimed at Goyle's chest.

"Looks like a couple of Death Eaters wandering the Forbidden Forest," Hermione replied, curling her wand up to point it at Goyle's throat. "What shall we do with them, Harry?"

"Nott's right," Goyle grunted quickly, "'e's killed Draco, we ain't lookin' to turn you in - "

"Lucky that, as I certainly wouldn't permit it," Hermione said loftily, feeling a thrill of something rattle against her bones as Goyle broke off, shaking. "Perhaps we could give them a message, Harry? Something to pass along to their master?"

"That's a thought," Harry agreed, sparing her a roguish smile. "A little . . . rebirth announcement, if you will?"

Nott grimaced. "Potter," he growled, "you know we could be killed for carrying that particular message."

"Funny that should matter," Harry retorted, "as it _also_ turns out you can be killed over something as ill-conceived as a prophecy. Perhaps you'll be lucky, Nott," he murmured, grabbing Nott's chin in his hand to dig his wand into the other man's temple, "as it seems the Dark Lord's killing curses sometimes don't seem to stick."

Nott said nothing, staring mutinously back at Harry.

"Where's Ron?" Hermione asked, glancing between Nott and Goyle. "Where are the others?"

"Don't know," Nott spat, jerking his head back as Harry's wand pressed deeper into his forehead. "They got away."

"How many did you kill, Nott?" Harry asked. "Get a trophy for your body count?"

"None," Nott growled. "I didn't fucking touch any of them." At a jab from Harry, he flinched. "I fucking _swear,_ Potter, check my wand if you don't believe me - "

"And you?" Hermione asked, eyeing Goyle. "How many?"

Goyle hesitated, sweat dripping from his forehead. "I - I didn' - "

Hermione bent to look him in the eye, nudging his chin up with her wand. "How many?" she repeated. "I can make you tell," she whispered warningly, and Goyle forced his eyes shut.

"Abbott," he muttered. "And Corner."

Hermione felt a twist of rage at that; a shock of anger that pounded mercilessly through her mind, ricocheting in her chest, beating relentlessly at her sense of justice. She thought at first to sob, to scream, to retch; to wither in her desolation, in the disconsolateness of his wrongs.

And then she thought better of it.

"Harry," she murmured, "how many people does it take to deliver a message?"

Harry's smile cut across his lips.

"One," he determined flatly, and she watched the tip of her wand glow against the pale skin of Goyle's throat.

* * *

" _Harry," she gasped, on her back this time with him poised above her, his fingers pressing into the gaps of her ribs. "Harry - "_

She woke with a start, hearing him pace beside her bed and slowly catching her breath as her gaze followed his path across the tent.

"How did it feel to kill Goyle?" he asked, and she paused, considering the question.

"Easy," she croaked simply, and he nodded.

"And Nott," he mused. "You don't think letting him go back without an _Imperius_ was a mistake?"

She shook her head. "No," she said softly. "He doesn't want this," she added in explanation. "I could tell."

To her surprise, Harry's eyes narrowed momentarily. "You could tell," he repeated, looking vaguely displeased. "Perhaps," he ventured, suddenly easing into a teasing smile, "we should have kept him for your entertainment, then?"

"My entertainment?" she repeated, rolling her eyes. "Harry, please."

"Why not?" he ventured in mock innocence, coming to stand at the foot of her bed. "I think I saw you looking at him once or twice while we were at school - "

"Oh, _stop,_ " she admonished him, pursing her lips. "You know I'm with Ron."

She knew it was a mistake as soon as the words slipped out; Harry bristled, his expression hardening as the game fizzled to nothing between them.

"I do know that," he agreed coolly, turning away.

 _You're mine,_ she heard him say; read it in the line of his back, in the slope of his shoulder, in the glimmer of the way his eyes met hers -

"Of course," she ventured, her heart pounding in her chest, "I'm not sure how much Ron will approve of my more recent behavior."

She watched him pause, glancing over his shoulder to let his tongue slip tellingly against his lips. "Oh?" Harry asked drily.

"There's the whole murder thing," she said, "and the subsequent transfiguration of Goyle's body."

Harry's smile twitched. "Well, Ron never cared much for Goyle," he mused. "Perhaps he'll find it dismissible."

"There's the _Imperius_ issue as well," Hermione contributed neutrally. "He might not want to stay with me once he discovers that."

"Maybe not," Harry murmured. "But still," he added carefully, "if he really loves you, then - "

"And if none of _those_ things mean anything to him," she interrupted, rising carefully, her bare feet pressing lightly against the cold floor of their tent, "there is always the chance he will be disappointed to discover that all this time" - she paused as Harry stepped closer to her, sucking in a breath as he let his hands rest temptingly against her hips - "this whole time," she repeated, whispering, "I've been yours."

She watched the yearning flicker return to his eye.

"Mine," Harry said, his lips curling up in triumph. "Really?"

"If," she said, letting him press her back against the post of her bed, "you want me, that is."

"If?" he repeated, bending his head to mutter against her neck. "You really have doubts about whether I would?"

"I'm no Ginny," she reminded him, closing her eyes as his hands slid under her shirt, gripping tightly to her waist. "I'm no Cho, either - "

"They're nothing compared to you," he growled in her ear, snarling it like she'd dared to defy him with the unsteadiness of her doubt. His hands found the swells of her breasts under her shirt, teasing along the cups of her bra as he shifted a knee between her legs, widening her stance. "Nobody," he hissed, "is _anything_ compared to you - "

A whimper escaped from her parted lips and she felt him smile against her cheek, the roughness of it scraping against her skin as his lips traveled along her jaw, his hand rising up to force her chin towards his. "You're mine," he said triumphantly. "You were never his."

"No," she confessed, her fingers traveling helplessly to the button of his jeans. "I wasn't. "

"I have your loyalty," Harry murmured, his hand resting against the thudding in her chest, "and your love?"

"Yes," she agreed, fumbling with his zipper to take him in her hand, prompting them both to stifle moans as she held his hardened cock, smoothing her palm along its length. "My loyalty, my love, my" - she cut off as he kissed her, soft and pulsing against her lips before devolving to an ardent demand, a searing pressure between his teeth that tore a loud cry from her throat - "my - "

"This," he said, raising her up with an arm around her ribs and tearing her jeans down the length of her legs to hurriedly slide a finger against her, slipping his hand under the thin fabric of her underwear. "All of you - "

"Yours," she promised weakly, her legs buckling as he thrust two fingers inside her, rhythmically pulsing as she writhed against him. "Yours, Harry," she gasped, taking a fistful of his messy black hair as he bent his head to her breasts, grazing his teeth against her nipple. " _Yours_ \- "

He pulled away, grabbing wordlessly for his wand and flicking it to slash open the remaining buttons of her shirt, stepping back to let her kick her jeans away and then tearing the thin lace of her underwear down her legs, leaving her to shiver apprehensively in the spare inches between them.

He yanked his t-shirt over his head, revealing the carved structure beneath; the coiled muscle of consequence, of survival, artfully splintered with scars that had slashed across the contours of him, the epic of him that was written and riddled with suffering. She stepped towards him, her fingers outstretched, feeling him inhale sharply as she touched a mark of something - _had it been a dragon_ , she thought fancifully, _or else a Dark Lord_ ; what kind of monster, what immeasurable instance of bravery had done it? - and instilled her touch with reverence, with the fervor of her devotion.

"Hermione," he murmured, glassy-eyed, and she gripped his waist, bending to press her lips to his chest, dropping lower to his torso, settling herself on her knees -

"Harry," she whispered back, taking the tip of his cock and sliding it against the moistened channel of her lips; for Ron this had felt silly - had felt foreign and oddly pornographic - but for Harry she could not imagine doing otherwise, could not fathom not wanting to _taste him_ , to let her tongue flick over him and hear the sharpness of his breath, the hollow whisper of her name. She slid her lips over the length of him, taking him slowly, letting him thrust gently against her mouth before digging her fingers into his arse, drawing him into her. He reached down, taking a fistful of her hair and tightening his fingers in her curls as she glanced up to watch his head fall back, a look of tortured satisfaction - of _yes, this, us, at last -_ crossing the shadow of his face, the peerless green of his eyes disappearing behind hazily closed lids.

She felt his cock leap against her throat and then saw his eyes flutter open, his gaze settling briefly on her face before he bent to scoop her up in his arms, carrying her to her bed and throwing her back against the still-dismantled sheets. "You're mine," he said again, sliding his palms against the curves of her thighs, spreading them apart.

"I'm yours," she agreed, crying out as he brought his mouth between her legs, in wonder, in rapture, in beatific pain; _we're only slaves to our containers -_

He forced her legs as wide as they would go, spreading the lips of her cunt to thrust his tongue inside her, to drag it relentlessly against her clit. This, too, had been clumsy with Ron, had been awkward and uncertain, but Harry buried his face against her, lapping hungrily at her like she could somehow fill him; like he'd been broken and beaten and starved until _that moment_ , and she was the taste he had _longed for_ -

She came with a shuddered cry, a moan that ripped itself from her lips, and then he was thrusting inside her; he pulled her up, pressing her chest against his as he fucked her - hungry, starved, _ravenous_ , his teeth gritted in desperation - and she bent her head to bite down on his shoulder, adding to his collection of scars.

He tugged her hair back as he came, the flash in the green glinting as he panted out the sound of her name, of _you're mine, you're mine, you're mine -_

 _I'm yours,_ she gasped, and knew that he could feel it.

* * *

"It's done," Nott had said flatly, meeting them at their spot in the forest. "Scabior's told him the same - presumably you know that already," he guessed, smirking, and Harry tilted his head warily, saying nothing. "In any case, he'll be at the castle, as you requested," Nott concluded. "And so will the remains of the Order, if they've gotten the message - "

"They have," Hermione confirmed, " _if_ you've done everything I told you to - "

"Which I have," Nott had confirmed tartly. "So once you kill the bastard, my obligation here is done."

"Obligation?" Harry lamented, sighing facetiously. "Nott, you could at least _pretend_ to enjoy our company."

"Seeing as you're both terrible, I will not," Nott informed him briskly. He turned, walking back towards the castle, before turning over his shoulder. "You two are fucked, by the way," he added, gesturing between them. "Whatever this is."

And then he'd gone, leaving her to wonder how right he'd been.

"Maybe we're bad for each other," she whispered to Harry as she lay in his arms. "Do you think maybe this is wrong?"

He said nothing.

 _Is he as you remember?_

"We're supposed to be seeing Ron any day now," she added, babbling anxiously. "So - "

"Go to sleep," Harry advised, his arms tightening around her.

 _Did I say it was mercy?_

"You're mine," he whispered, and she opened her mouth - _yes, yes, yes -_ but he kissed her silent, ripping the words from her tongue. "And I'm yours," he promised, and the moment he filled her, she felt every piece of herself be consumed by him, mind and body and -

 _Soul,_ she thought, and nearly laughed, the entirety of her being set ablaze.

* * *

Tom Riddle had been a man for speeches; Harry Potter was not.

Voldemort turned to face him - trapped, as Nott had assured them he would be, between the Order and the other quietly defected Death Eaters - with no escape. He opened his mouth; _to taunt_ , Hermione guessed, _or to gape_ , but Harry was no mere Boy Who Lived any longer.

" _Avada Kedavra_ ," Harry intoned emotionlessly, watching the so-called Dark Lord fall; Hermione stood by his side, nodding her satisfaction.

Theo had lured Voldemort to the castle and set the message through channels Hermione had instructed, and in the end, all that remained - Death Eater and Order of the Phoenix alike - bore witness, watching the Chosen One crush his foot decidedly against Lord Voldemort's chest, proving with certainty that unlike Tom Riddle, _Harry Potter's_ killing curses did not fail.

It had been oddly easy, disturbingly painless; until a glint of red hair caught her eye across the courtyard. She hesitated, pausing mid-stride as Ron looked up, catching her eye.

"You can go back to him if you want," Harry said in her ear, stepping behind her. "If it's easier."

"It would be," she agreed, and he nodded. "Maybe Nott's right," she said, smiling wanly. "Maybe we _are_ fucked up. Or maybe," she considered tentatively, suffering a brush of very real fear, "we only work when it's war. When we have an enemy," she said sadly.

"As far as I'm concerned, I still do," he returned, shrugging. "All the Death Eaters whose trials will be delayed," he reminded her, his voice hardening with a cool, troubled rage, "whose wealth or lies will keep them out of Azkaban, the same as it was before." He released a shaky breath. "Unless, of course, _I_ have something to do with it - "

"You're not coming home, then," she interrupted softly, turning over her shoulder to face him. Harry shook his head, stifling a humorless laugh.

"To do what?" he scoffed. "Wear knitted sweaters at Christmas? Eat treacle tart? Have a small brood of optimistic redheaded children?" he asked mockingly, gesturing to Ginny, who'd joined Ron. Hermione paused as she watched them, considering the possibilities; _contentment,_ she thought; _hadn't that been something she'd wanted?_

"No," Harry pronounced curtly, tearing his gaze away from Ginny and returning his attention to her. "After the things I've done, I could never go back." He paused for a moment to look at her, frowning, his gaze tracing slowly over her face - _memorizing her_ , she guessed - before reaching a hand out to tuck a curl behind her ear. "After everything I've - "

She leaned helplessly into his touch, watching his gaze drop to her lips.

"Tasted," he murmured regretfully, and she shivered, knowing he was right.

"It could never be the same," she agreed, even as a part of her begged her to _step back, don't do this, Ron's watching -_

"You could come," Harry offered softly. His gaze slipped over her shoulder to where Ron stood behind her, waiting; she turned, catching the softness of his familiar blue eyes.

For a moment, time stood still; she existed between futures and pasts, the space between choices. Ron would be better, she knew, would make her whole; would give her peace, would give her calmness, stillness, normalcy. Ron, her brain told her, and she agreed; Ron, she thought pleadingly, but then -

 _You're not his,_ she heard Harry say, _you never were_ ; words that had rooted themselves in her soul.

Her soul, _and his_. She'd wondered if it would splinter along with the lives they'd taken, whether they were building their own trail of regrets; but they were too much a part of each other to sever, and perhaps even the laws of magic had known.

 _What is a love story,_ she heard, a whisper in her mind, _if not the intertwining of two souls?_

"Sorry, _"_ she finally mouthed across the courtyard, and Ron's eyes widened in pain but he nodded; _he knew_ , she thought, _as Harry knew, as she'd always known -_

"I'm yours," she said to Harry, grabbing his hand and disapparating on the spot.

* * *

 _In the end, I always belonged to you, and I will wither at your mercy._

* * *

 **a/n:** In classic Olivie fashion I am already late on my 8 Days of Murder countdown to my birthday, but more coming shortly: of the new material, there will be a Mulcibery, a dark (goes without saying for this collection, but am saying anyway) politicians!Dramione, and either a Voldetrix or Parkgrass (TBD), plus Theocissa, Pottgrass, Regulene, and (more) Dramione. See you back here soon!


	2. A Hundred Days

**A Hundred Days**

 _Pairing:_ Dramione (Draco x Hermione)

 _Universe:_ Post-War AU

 _Rating:_ M for language, implied sex

 _Summary:_ Originally posted in _Amortentia_ and now revised, reworked, and moved here _._ Draco Malfoy is made to pay the price for his crimes for one hundred days - but it's the hundred days before them that are the ones that change his life.

* * *

 **Day 100**

"I'll wait for you," she whispered, her fingers tangled in his.

"Don't," he lied.

She smiled. His heart wrenched.

"Too late," she told him, and they took him away.

* * *

 **Day 95**

"I'm not going to have a wand," he reminded her, arching a brow. "Sort of part of the whole incarceration bit, I think."

"Yes, yes, I know," she replied, carelessly waving that away as though it were not, in fact, of crucial importance. "The incantation is only half of it, you know."

He sighed, choosing to humor her. "And the other half?"

"A happy memory," she said, crossing one slender leg over the other and analyzing him as though he were a rather complex - but solvable; for her, _always_ solvable - riddle. "The strongest one you have."

"Seems silly," he remarked, wondering how many inches he'd need to move to be able to sweep the loose curl over her shoulder.

She eyed him carefully.

"Happiness isn't silly," she said.

* * *

 **Day 1**

"I'm not going to help him," Weasley grumbled, his lumbering footfall echoing through the front room of Grimmauld Place. "And I bloody well don't see why _you_ have to, either, Harry - "

"We have to," Potter interrupted. "And we're going to."

Draco listened to the rustle of the bespectacled wizard's robes as he shifted to address the other person in the room; the solemn third party, the one with the brains. The one with the sense, Draco knew, not to get involved.

Unlike Potter, who seemed intent on interfering.

"You're in, aren't you?" Potter asked her, a little brusquely, with an air of certainty that Draco supposed came from being the _Chosen One;_ from leading their troupe of twatting loons since he was eleven years old. It was only because of Draco's constant proximity to them - having been subjected to the tasked adolescence of growing up with them, irrespective of their later divisions - that he recognized what Potter was doing was actually pleading.

"Well," he heard her say uncertainly, "are you sure that Malfoy wants our help?"

 _Go away, Potter,_ had been Draco's exact words. _I don't need your fucking hero complex shitting all over my travesty of a life._

"Definitely," Potter lied, and Draco rolled his eyes, rising to his feet, fully intent on leaving; until, that is, Potter's muttered admission of "I can't do it without you, Hermione" was met with a telling stillness that meant she was considering it.

Draco swallowed, a sticky clump of hope catching in his throat as he waited. Potter's name would help, he knew. Weasley he could certainly do without, but he was a necessary evil. Granger, though -

Draco knew as well as Potter did that she was the one who'd make a difference.

 _Would she forgive him?_ Draco wondered silently. _She shouldn't -_

But he held his breath anyway, waiting.

"I'm in," she said softly, and Draco nearly fell to his knees.

* * *

 **Day 50**

"What do you _mean_ there's nothing that we can do?" Weasley shouted, pacing Shacklebolt's office and scowling his displeasure as Draco stared quietly at his hands. "Are we not bloody _war heroes_ anymore?"

"Minister," she interrupted calmly, her voice eerily strained. "Surely you can see that in a case such as this, with no conceivable legal precedent - "

"The decision is final, Miss Granger," Shacklebolt rumbled.

A huff. A scowl. "You just want to make an _example_ of him - "

 _Potter_ , Draco sighed internally, rubbing his temple. _Always losing your temper._

"It's not _me_ , Mr Potter," Shacklebolt said firmly. "This is a decision based on countless criminal procedures and policies set by the Wizengamot and enforced by the Ministry, _of which_ it is my sworn duty to serve and uphold - "

Granger shoved Potter aside, bracing her palms on Shacklebolt's desk. She had long since put aside the proclivity for losing her temper that _she'd_ had as a girl - cooler heads, as they say, and so there would be no third year slapping - but what Potter and Weasley had expressed with a scowl, she conveyed with a stunning, spectacular control.

"It's wrong," she cut in bitterly, and Draco heard something waver in her voice. "It's wrong, Kingsley, and you know it."

Shacklebolt sighed.

"Take it up with the Wizengamot," he suggested, leaning back in resignation. "My authority ends here."

* * *

 **Day 102**

The dementors were coming in closer, approaching the bars of his cell. Beads of cold sweat dripped down his spine, the taste of fear salty and metallic in his mouth.

 _Happiness isn't silly_ , she'd said, and then she'd reached out, her fingers tracing the angle of his jaw.

Her eyes. Her smile. _Fuck_ , her smile; he had learned to make her smile, and who was he?

The hooded figures wavered.

 _Draco_ , she'd said.

A whisper in his mind.

They glided back, then vanished.

* * *

 **Day 37**

"Look, it's nothing to do with Malfoy _himself_ ," Weasley protested. "It's not _personal_ , it's - it's just not right what they're doing to him. What they're threatening." He straightened, shaking his head. "It's the principle of the thing, Hermione!"

She chuckled, not taking her eyes from her cooking. "Sure it is," she remarked, her lips quirking up in muted amusement. "Dice these," she instructed briskly, nudging some carrots his way. "Small enough to actually _chew_ this time, okay?"

Weasley groaned, accepting them. "Look, it isn't about _Malfoy_ , Mione," he insisted, "okay? Seriously - "

She hummed her cheery agreement. "Mhmm," she agreed. "Of course not."

Weasley sighed, the kitchen knife flashing as he threw his hands up in defeat. "Fine," he grumbled. "Malfoy's . . . not so bad, okay?"

Draco watched her look up from where she was slicing onions; she still chose to do it by hand, he knew, and he always found it odd, though also oddly understandable. Sometimes, he'd noticed, after a long day of research - after hours of Wizengamot case law - she preferred to put her wand away; and while he might have once found the compulsion primitive, he now found it comforting. He had learned that there was much more to her than her wand; much more, in a similar vein, than her blood.

He found he quite liked seeing her at ease.

"No," she remarked to Weasley, brushing a curl out of her eyes with the back of her wrist and softening at the thought, seeming to have arrived at a similar conclusion. "No, he really isn't quite so bad."

* * *

 **Day 75**

"Draco," she whispered warningly, " _Draco -_ "

But fuck if he was going to give up, to let her walk away without _knowing_ -

"Thank you," he muttered in her ear, his eyes closed from the sheer force of his gratitude. "Even if it didn't work," he choked out, "even if they take me, if I still have to go - "

She gasped against his mouth, sighed against his lips; melted under the tips of his fingers and molded herself against him, reshaped and refitted and reworked.

"Draco," she said again, softer this time. _Not a warning_ , he thought, _but a promise._

A shiver up his spine -

"Thank you," he whispered, letting the words seep into her skin as he pressed his lips against her shoulder.

He brought his head to her neck, tasting her. _Thank you._ His fingers on her hips. _Thank you._ His teeth against her thigh. _Thank you._

That night together. All night.

Their first night.

 _Thank you, thank you, thank you._

* * *

 **Day 99**

"I love you," she said simply, like she was talking about ancient runes. Like it was a fact - like she'd read it in a book - like she knew for _certain -_

And it crushed him.

"Don't," he rasped, clutching his chest; too filled with fear, too weighted down with longing, to know how he could ever hope to be enough. "Don't - I can't - "

"I don't expect you to," she said primly; pulling him into her, stroking his hair. "It's okay."

"No - _no_ ," he insisted, "it's not - "

His shoulders shook with silent, convulsing sobs.

"It's okay," she whispered, her fingers slowly running down his spine, and for the briefest moment - a breath or less - he believed her. She took his hand and lay beside him, waiting with him, letting him curl against her and granting him the dignity of silence; permitting him to shudder in his devastation until he'd gathered his strength from hers, drawing sanctuary from her lips.

That night together. All night.

Their last night.

 _I love you, I love you, I love you._

* * *

 **Day 70**

" - flagrant use of Unforgivables - "

" - there's no softening it, the _Imperius curse_ \- "

He couldn't focus. He couldn't bring himself to listen. It was like they were talking about someone _else_ , some monster, some abhorrent, soulless creature he didn't know or recognize, some inhuman spectre who'd _done all these things_ and could never be clean; and after hours of it - over and over, a harried refrain of his failings - he started to wonder if they were right.

" - circumstances unsavory, certainly, given his youth -

" - still, our hands are tied - "

"He is a _human being_!"

Her voice, ringing through the chamber.

"Who are you, that you can look at him and not see a chance at redemption?" she demanded. "Who do you think you are, that you can pass judgment without having heard his side?"

He wondered if she knew as well as he did - if she knew herself as thoroughly as he had foolishly learned her, too late, from afar - how close she was to tears.

"He is a _good man -_ "

She broke off, her eyes flicking towards him.

"He's a good man," she begged hoarsely, squaring her shoulders as she faced the Wizengamot. "He deserves a second chance."

The voice droned on, undaunted by her admission.

"Be that as it may, Miss Granger, certain things cannot be overlooked - "

Draco barely listened, his heart thudding in his chest, blood rushing in his ears, the memory of her eyes as they'd met his the only meaningful shred of him that remained.

 _He's a good man._

She had told him how she felt, and he'd heard it.

* * *

 **Day 150**

Harder now. Harder after weeks without her.

 _Your strongest memory_ , she'd said.

All he could see were her eyes.

* * *

 **Day 15**

"None of your shit," she warned him, practically throwing the plate down on the table. "I don't want to hear it, do you understand?"

He rolled his eyes, sighing affectedly. "Simmer down, Granger - "

"No," she snarled, her eyes flashing with anger. "Harry's putting himself _on the line_ for you, Malfoy!"

 _Don't act like I don't know that,_ he thought helplessly, but more careless words than those left his lips in a growl -

"I didn't ask for this!"

"I don't give a fuck!" she yelled, and he balked, surprised that she had it in her to swear. "I don't care whether you asked for it or not," she ranted, "he's giving up _everything_ for this - his reputation, his privacy - his _ego_ , frankly - "

"I fucking _know that_ ," Draco countered sharply, the plate clattering against the table as he hastily leapt to his feet, slamming a hand down in frustration. "I fucking _know_ what he's done for me - "

She stared at him, breathing hard.

"You had better be worth it," she warned.

She was cold when she wanted to be.

"Pity," he spat. "I'm not."

* * *

 **Day 65**

"Go to bed, Granger," he sighed, rubbing his eyes and rising to his feet. "It's nearly four."

She waved him away. "I can't," she said, her eyes glued to the book before her. "I'm finally stumbling on something here, I think - "

"Get some sleep," he urged, reaching behind her chair to pull her up, arms gently encircling her ribs. "Seriously," he muttered in her ear, fighting a grimace. "This is too much, and you need to - "

"I can't," she protested, rigid in his grasp. "I can't," she repeated, "I can't, I can't, I _can't -_ "

She was struggling to breathe, devolving in panic; he released her, walking around to face her and kneeling at her feet.

"What is it?" he asked quietly, watching her eyes brim with tears.

"I can't let them do this to you," she whispered. "I can't."

He scanned her face carefully, trying not to let his attention snag on her lips as she bit down, weary and torn and uncertain. _Not the time_ , he scolded himself, and met her earnest gaze with his.

"Go to bed, Granger," he said again, gentle this time. "I'm not worth this."

She shook her head, staring at him.

"You are," she said, her eyes glowing in wonderment like she was realizing something for the first time. "You _are_."

* * *

 **Day 175**

He shivered, his teeth chattering. It only got harder. Every day without her.

It only got harder.

 _I can't think of anything_ , he'd told her, throwing his hands up in exasperation. _No happy memories to speak of._

He'd paused. _Fuck 'em. They can have my soul._

She, then, had laughed; a _real_ laugh, a laugh born of consummate exhaustion, throwing her head back and letting tears pool in the corners of her eyes. _So dark_ , she'd told him, and it was.

But still - her laugh. He had learned to make her _laugh_ , and who was he?

They couldn't have his soul.

No.

That was hers.

* * *

 **Day 90**

"A hundred days," she said dully, her shoulders slumped in disbelief. "As though that makes sense _at all_."

She hadn't thought it would happen; she was used to winning. _Pity,_ he thought, _that for him she'd have to learn to lose._

"A poetic number, I'm sure," Draco said, trying to push aside his fear - _how long did it really take for a Dementor to steal your soul, after all? -_ and focus on her; on the urgency of her new loss of faith, the crashing disillusionment he'd learned long ago.

"Not fair," she muttered, sliding weakly to the floor. "It's not fair - "

He crumpled with her, pulling her to his chest.

"You'd think it's you who has to go to Azkaban," he said, attempting humor as he brushed his lips against her wild hair.

"It's a piece of me," she whispered, her lashes fluttering helplessly as she looked at him, tracing his lips with her fingers. "Isn't it?"

He swallowed, drawing moisture to his throat, and forced himself to smile, however unsteadily.

"The worst piece," he assured her. "The one you can do without."

She shook her head; pronounced him a fool in a breathless, decisive moment. "Not anymore," she promised him.

And it _was_ a promise, he knew, and he hated himself for it.

But fuck, he loved _her_.

* * *

 **Day 190**

He couldn't manage to lift his head.

 _Go ahead_ , he thought weakly, conscious of the rise and fall of his chest that seemed to be slowing as the dementors hovered above him; the hooded faceless preparing for descent.

A soul. What good was his?

 _Take it,_ he thought, _I don't need it._

"None of your shit," he heard her say. "I don't want to hear it, do you understand?"

 _Simmer down, Granger._

"No."

 _I didn't ask for this._

"I don't give a fuck!"

And then he was laughing, laughing so hard he was _choking_ , choking until he was _crying_ , tears streaming down his cheeks as they drifted away, phantasmally repulsed.

"Fuck you," he shouted, dragging the backs of his hands across his eyes, across tears that were equally sorrow and mirth. "Fuck you, you can't have me, I'm hers!"

He laughed and laughed and laughed.

 _Fuck you,_ he thought, _I'm hers._

* * *

 **Day 25**

"Why are you doing this?"

He had finally asked, after weeks of wondering; after weeks of _I don't care_ and _suit yourself_ and _it doesn't matter,_ he had finally owned up to his curiosity.

Potter looked up, his weary face solemn.

"You don't deserve this," he said, unburdened by pretense. "You don't."

Draco sighed. "Still - "

"I didn't _almost die_ so that you would suffer," Potter cut in, and Draco heard the sharp edge of rage that seemed to be perpetually present, an ever-present thrum of disappointment in the world he'd tried so desperately to save. "I didn't risk my life so that _you_ would have to suffer," Potter muttered; _stubborn as ever_ , Draco mused, shaking his head.

"I did some fucked up things," Draco reminded him, crossing his arms. "I did. I'm not innocent."

"I don't care," Potter replied, sliding forward in his chair and closing his eyes. "You're not who you were," he added carefully, "and I know that."

Draco sighed, ashamed at the way his heart leapt.

No, not ashamed at _that,_ he amended; ashamed at everything _before_ that. Everything he'd caused. The friend that he had never been to this man, the man who had always been twice his worth; the man who sat before him, exhausted, dejected and pained on his behalf.

It was enough to stop his heart, and he wilted, a coil of regret knotting itself in his throat as he sank back into one of Potter's chairs, resigning his knees to buckle.

"She knows it, too," Potter added tangentially, opening one green eye.

"Oh," Draco whispered.

And then, it seemed, he could breathe.

* * *

 **Day 200**

He'd almost forgotten how to walk by the time they released him. It was uncomplicated, inelegant, an open door one day that simply hadn't existed before. No fanfare, no _bye now, you're fixed now, the world is remedied now, and all because you've done your time -_

Not that he'd expected much.

Where to go? What to do? Not the Manor, never again. He wasn't Potter's project anymore, so not there either. Where to go with a Mark on his wrist, time served on his record?

And then he saw her. At first he thought he imagined it, but then -

"Come on," she said coaxingly, her hand on his arm. "Let's go."

"Where?" he croaked, feeling the stirring of his voice against his throat for the first time in months, the sound of it raucous and grating and loud.

She didn't seem to mind.

"Anywhere," she replied, slipping an arm around his waist and leaning her head against his chest. "Everywhere."

He buried his nose in her hair and nodded, filling his lungs with the smell of her; the first sweet thing in a hundred days.

"You made it," she murmured, glancing up at him with the same gaze that kept him sane.

 _Fuck them,_ he thought, _I'm yours -_

"Guess I'm not very desirable," he muttered hoarsely, and she smiled.

"I beg to differ," she said.

And then, it seemed, he could breathe.

* * *

 **a/n:** Second day of 8 Days of Murder birthday extravaganza; though, oddly, there is no murder in this one. DON'T WORRY, there's always tomorrow.


	3. Four Things

**Four Things**

 _Pairing:_ Mulcibery (Darian Mulciber x Caleb Avery)

 _Universe:_ _This World or Any Other_ Storyverse, Canon, OotP

 _Rating:_ M for sex, language

 _Summary:_ Following the events of _Youth_ (and in accordance with canon), Darian Mulciber is convicted for his crimes as a Death Eater and sentenced to life in Azkaban. Caleb Avery sits quietly during Darian's trial and claims influence under the _Imperius_ curse during his own. But in 1996, the rise of the Dark Lord means that Azkaban isn't quite as secure it used to be - and now, fifteen years later, they finally meet again.

This story contains some passages from _Youth,_ but is arranged so it can be read as a standalone piece.

* * *

 _ **The Ministry of Magic, 1981**_

* * *

"Mr Mulciber," Crouch said shortly, staring down at him. "You must answer the question."

Darian swallowed, saying nothing.

"Mr Mulciber," Crouch repeated impatiently, "have you or have you not used the incantation _Avada Kedavra,_ the so-called Killing Curse, on another human being?"

Darian glanced up, watching the line of Caleb's shoulder.

"Yes," he whispered.

* * *

 _ **Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 1978**_

* * *

All things considered, a first kill could have been worse.

 _Avada Kedavra_ , he thought, not lifting his wand, still sampling the words within the confines of his psyche. He almost felt there should have been some kind of divine nod of approval, some signal from above; something to qualify him for its use, and yet there was nothing.

Nothing but Caleb's watchful eye, appraising him silently.

 _Do it_ , Darian told himself, _there was never any turning back, there was never any chance for anything but this -_

 _Do it_ , his mind demanded again, insistent, beating his conscience into submission, flailing violently within himself. _This was your fucking task -_

"Steady," Caleb murmured, reaching out. He placed a hand on Darian's arm just as Grant Stebbins stirred, his lashes fluttering as though he might have opened his eyes.

 _Do it_ , Darian, his father's voice yelled in his mind, _do it_ -

Stebbins' eyes fluttered again and Caleb's grip tightened on Darian's arm.

 _Do it_

 _Do it_

 _DO IT -_

" _Avada Kedavra_ ," Darian intoned blankly, and then it was as if time had stopped; a flash of blinding green light, a slight collapse to Stebbins' motionless form; a breath of silence in his mind, all voices suddenly suspended.

The world went quiet as power throbbed through Darian's bones, a rush of something cold and gruesome flooding him and chilling him to his soul. It was glacial and menacing and he wanted desperately to shake it, to break it, to _break free_ \- only the moment the surge left him, one word floated to mind with a whisper -

 _Again._

He blinked, seeing the bone on the ground, knowing Caleb had transfigured Stebbins' body and delivered him to his grave, to his eternity. A wave of something washed over him; relief, he suspected, or else calm.

Something was fractured and he imagined he could feel air rushing in through slim cracks in his lungs; every breath he drew was piercing and cruel, but his fingers buzzed with purpose.

With _power_.

Only one other thing made him feel that way, he realized as Caleb's blue eyes settled on his; this, the flex in his fingers, was only akin to the feel of Caleb's hair underneath them, the sharp angle of his jaw and how it had knocked against Darian's, collateral damage in the frenzied handful of trysts they were never to speak of.

 _Stop_ , he told the rush of blood in his head. _How many people had been murdered by the Dark Lord for less?_ he reminded the thudding pulse in his veins. He raged against the weight in his belly, the need in his bones - _if you fucking get yourself caught_ \- _if anyone finds out -_

But he didn't listen. He _never fucking listened_ , and when Caleb stood, poised and placid, Darian shoved him against a tree, tearing at his lips and tasting blood and wanting more.

"Darian," Caleb gasped hoarsely, though he looked equally hungry, "someone could see - "

"You're a fucking wizard, Caleb," Darian replied carelessly, his voice husky and gruff and sharp. "Cast a fucking _spell_ \- "

And then he turned him brusquely, pressing Caleb's chest against the bark and fumbling with his trousers, yanking them down to his knees and kicking his feet apart as Caleb weakly muttered a disillusionment charm, punctuating the spell with an impossibly faint moan. Beneath Darian's feet the surface of the earth felt pliant and submissive, bending to his will, the softness of it wildly incongruous with the pulsing need in his veins.

He pressed himself against Caleb, wondering if he could - if he _dared_ -

"Fuck me," Caleb panted, the words escaping in a mutinous growl, like they'd fought their way out of his throat. "Darian, fuck me - "

It would be the first time.

 _Do it_ , his brain shouted, _fucking do it -_

 _DO IT -_

He didn't know how he managed it, how he knew what Caleb needed, what _he_ needed, only one moment he was muttering a spell he only half knew and the next he was pressing against Caleb's slick entrance, time stopping again, the world holding its breath a second time, and then his cock was out and then it was inside Caleb and he was fucking whole. He was fucking _whole_.

Darian held Caleb's hips, pressing down on them as Caleb pushed back to meet him, and it was sweat and musk and earth, and it was warm and swollen and euphoric, and as Caleb spilled onto his hand and he spilled, breathless, into Caleb, he only heard one word -

 _Again._

* * *

 _ **Malfoy Manor, 1996**_

* * *

Caleb is married now. Darian hears this in whispers, references to a Mrs Avery, to a woman whom Caleb has been with for as long as Darian has been in prison. Nobody tells him who she is, and he does not ask. They kept their secrets well, and so it doesn't occur to anyone that he would want to know. It doesn't occur to anyone that he is even listening.

Darian is not the only one who has returned, nor is he even the most important. He was loyal, yes, and he denied nothing, neither crime nor Lord, and so they hail him, in their way, as a hero; for a time he accepts this - it gives him an odd, perverted sense of pleasure to see that Lucius Malfoy is reduced, in all the ways that matter, to a peon for his success, finally recognized for his slippery duplicity - but it grows tiresome well before Darian sees, _truly sees,_ what Azkaban has done to the others.

He knows what it has done to himself. He doesn't need to visit with his reflection to know that he is broken and that it shows, his bones draped in misery and a sallow, pallid skin. There isn't much to do in Azkaban but think, and the thinking he has done has worn him close to ash, diluted him to sickly, emaciated silence. He is foul and repugnant and loathsome and yes, he was all these things before, but now it _shows_ ; and it's funny, he thinks, how the time served has, in a sense, succeeded in at least one regard.

Now, he thinks, his appearance matches his worth.

Bellatrix, he notes, is more unhinged than ever, though this is no surprise; she, too, has been turned inside out, a twisted incarnation of the mangled remains of her soul that are finally transparent on sight. He looks at her and pales and she looks at him and smiles, and he knows that they are mirrors of each other - of themselves - and this, more than anything, breaks him, and privately he marvels that there is anything left of him to destroy.

But he should have known better than to think it would end there.

"My loyal Death Eaters," the Dark Lord crooned, sliding a taloned finger along the jagged bone of Bella's cheek, "it is with great pleasure that I welcome you here today, to stand beside me, united once again under the Mark that binds us."

The Dark Lord smiles, meaning to reward them, but his lips are thin and reptilian and no reassuring comfort, nor is the arch of them much a blessing.

 _Time,_ Darian laments sullenly, _has not been kind to either of us._

"The Lestranges," the Dark Lord announces, gesturing to them in a grand re-introduction, "Rodolphus, Rabastan" - he pauses, letting his hand fall - "Bellatrix," he murmurs softly, and she leans towards him, shivering in the delirium of her pleasure. "And, of course," the Dark Lord continues, "my faithful servants, Rookwood, Dolohov, Mulciber - "

There is a sound that cuts through the room when Darian's name is spoken, though he is fairly certain that only he hears it. The rest of the room carries on in rapture as the Dark Lord continues, but Darian hears it; partially because he is listening for it. The sharp inhalation, the breath that amounts to what Darian has imagined for fifteen years, carries from the end of the long table, barely audible from its source's position near the door.

 _How like him,_ Darian thinks, wallowing miserably in the bitter familiar. _Always conscious of the exit._

Caleb is partially hidden from sight but he shifts slightly at the sound of Darian's name, an old reflex that Darian is pleased to see has not quite been stamped out; his darkly-robed shoulders come into view along with a glint of his bowed head, and when he catches it, Darian tries not to stare.

If the years have been cruel to Darian, they have been cruelly indulgent to Caleb. The blond hair that used to carelessly dust his forehead is now slicked back and parted and Darian can see the line of Caleb's jaw, the jut of his cheek, and that they are sharper now, more carved. He looks older, certainly, but in the way rich men grow older - wherein they comfortably wear refinement cast over their features, seeping from their pores and buried in their bones - and to this, Caleb is no exception. Caleb, who has always been beautiful, is beautiful still, and more terrible for it.

Darian wishes instantly to strangle him where he stands.

Darian catches Caleb swallowing with difficulty - he assumes that Caleb, like him, is suffering the resurgence of something he'd rather not remember - and Darian watches the motion of his throat, thinking fancifully of his own hand wrapped around it. He imagines Caleb's blue eyes widening as he tightens his grip, pictures Caleb's lips parting as he stands over him, ripping the breath from the lungs that _he is owed_ , and his mouth waters at the thought - of the fifteen years of freedom that Caleb has wrongfully stored in his chest finally, finally, _finally_ being bestowed upon Darian, stolen and ruptured and torn; the price for broken promises.

Darian, who has killed many times before, thinks it would be worth it, and he knows with an almost staggering certainty that he would enjoy performing it, too.

He has imagined many times what he would say if he ever saw Caleb again, though he has never once imagined it like this; of course, he has never really believed it would happen, but when he permits himself the fantasy then in his mind they are alone, and Caleb is not the shuffling penitent that Darian looks at now. Perhaps, Darian mournfully thinks, he misremembers Caleb; perhaps the Caleb who lives in his mind is not the one who stands in this room, who is clearly a desperate supplicant for the Dark Lord's forgiveness.

 _You wanted to save yourself then, too,_ Darian thinks, finding the brush of irony to be exquisite. _If only you'd had the foresight to wait fifteen years._

He thinks this either too hard or too loudly and Caleb, who has always been able to feel Darian's eyes on him, finally looks up, meeting Darian's across the room in a moment that brings a ringing silence crashing down around them.

Darian learns, then, that Caleb's eyes are just as he remembers and he falls easily into a practiced hate, feeling his stare turn guarded; he braces himself, waiting for a look of disgust that he discovers with surprise does not come. He hardens, though, when he reads what he thinks is pity in Caleb's gaze, and he glances down to see his knuckles turn white against the chair.

He's married now, Darian remembers, and wonders if Caleb has children. They would be at Hogwarts now, like he and Caleb once were, and he wonders if the life Caleb has given them is better than what they had, or if he has failed to stray from tradition. He wonders if Caleb's sons believe, as the two of them had believed, that their value is woven in the tapestries of their lineage. He wonders if Caleb has subjected them, as the two of them were subjected, to this life of devolution and subservience and punishment.

Or _honor_ , as it is pronounced from the Dark Lord's thin lips.

That Caleb has a wife is no surprise to Darian, and so it would be more foolish to lament it, or to hold any resentment towards him for it, than to simply recognize it as an inevitability that would have been met either way. That much was always known to them, and Darian, too, would likely have a wife of his own if fate had not intervened. He is not too old to take one now, he abruptly remembers (though he feels much older than he is) so perhaps it is coming - but he hopes it isn't, as he would not wish that burden on anyone. He is a criminal, yes, but not a petty thief; he wouldn't steal someone's life by subjecting them to sharing his.

Murder is, of course, a different situation. But at least that pain is quick.

He is pleased, in a way, to discover that the sight of Caleb does not destroy him, and in a mix of disappointment and relief as he steals a second glance he finds that neither of them collapses. Then he remembers in a bitter disintegration to reality that it has been many years, after all. Perhaps nothing remains between them. They have led very different lives for the last fifteen years; perhaps they've also had very different thoughts.

 _Or_ , Darian amends internally, perhaps Caleb knows that Darian's thoughts have been of his hand around Caleb's throat, and thus any preexisting affection is hard to come by.

He doesn't blame him. _He does_ , he corrects himself quickly, and for many things, all of which he intends to eventually address. But this one, at least, he has the dignity not to oversteep.

The wife doesn't matter, he reminds himself, and he doesn't blame Caleb for that; he doesn't even begrudge Caleb his wealth, or his obvious success. If there are Avery sons, Darian wishes them no ill, harbors no selfish grudges. He thinks that perhaps there are others at this table - Rodolphus, maybe, or Rookwood - who spent the last decade and more fueling tactical plans for revenge, or cultivating a quiet need for vengeance, and that perhaps it would be understandable if he had been among them; but he knows that he is not.

It isn't like that for Darian.

The thoughts that had occupied his mind in his Akaban cell were of the early days; the faint, guarded moments before he gave in. Vignettes of himself, at times, of his eyes falling on the crown of Caleb's head, and then of the particular angle of his shoulders; of the smell of him, smoky with an underlying sharpness. Like fruit on the edge of being ripe; as right as it was wrong.

The price had always been steep, and so the beginning of what they'd been was awash in the residual tinge of Firewhisky that had once served as a meager excuse, a means to keep them innocent of the longing vacancies at their fingertips and the lingering marks on their skin. It was _this_ that Darian had remembered, the constant teetering on the edge, rather than the rest.

Rather than the way the light fell across Caleb's shoulders in the morning, or the way his voice sounded when he lied, making promises they both knew they'd never be able to keep; or the rigid line of his spine when he turned his back on Darian.

 _Those_ are the things Darian had always known could drive him mad, and so he hadn't indulged them. But now it is different, and now the creatures who try to foist their greedy tendrils on his soul are only human, and so he takes a moment and he thinks, and he remembers, and he is swallowed almost completely until suddenly he is alone, and his feet have carried him outside.

 _A garden_ , he thinks, trying to remember that such a thing is beautiful, that flowers are delicate and lush, and that that is what beauty is. _All things can be forgotten_ , he thinks, _beauty included -_

But he knows he is wrong about both when he returns to the Manor, wandering the halls and arriving in the empty ballroom and feeling dwarfed by grandeur, and he knows it again when he is staring at the ceiling and Caleb finds him, standing in the doorway before taking hesitant steps inside.

He thinks to ask how Caleb found him, but before he opens his mouth, he thinks he knows the answer. Caleb has always had a knack for finding him when he is low. He didn't care for it then. He doesn't care for it now.

But logistically, he thinks, it does make things easier.

Caleb says nothing at first. Perhaps he feels owes Darian the first word.

He's not wrong.

"I see your tendency towards indiscretions has not cost you too dearly," Darian says. He wishes to be cruel, and also to be clever, but feels he arrives at sentimental and wishes immediately he had chosen to say nothing.

"Darian," Caleb says, and Darian can see his tongue is out of practice when he says it.

Darian waits.

"You have a wand?" Caleb asks tangentially, as though he is asking about the weather.

"I do," Darian confirms, and he does, as the Dark Lord has given him one. "Do you wish to duel?"

Caleb looks taken aback. "Why would I - "

"I'm joking," Darian says bitterly. "But clearly I'm not in top form, so you'll have to forgive me if my timing is a little . . . " he lets the words dissolve in the air between them, pausing to roughly drag his tongue over his lips. "Off," he finally says.

They pause uncomfortably; or rather, Caleb does. Darian stares. He has always had an unsettling stare - he's always been like a shadow beside Caleb, dark where Caleb is light - and he employs it to his advantage now, rejoicing in Caleb's discomfort.

It won't make up for fifteen years, Darian knows, but it's certainly not unsatisfying.

The first thing Caleb does when he opens his mouth to speak again is to make a terrible mistake.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, and Darian instantly clenches a fist.

"Don't," he seethes, and though Caleb's eyes should widen, they narrow instead, because Darian has allowed something familiar to happen between them.

"Don't?" Caleb echoes, and it is easy, _too_ easy, to fall back into a pattern, to be comfortable enough to fight. "Would you prefer I be something else?"

"Fucking be _anything_ but sorry," Darian says, and he notices he is shaking.

"Why, because pride is for lesser men?" Caleb asks, and Darian's mouth tightens in annoyance.

"What do you expect me to do with an apology?" Darian grounds out, half wanting to laugh. "You never apologized for anything before, Caleb, and it isn't a particularly good look on you now - "

"Whereas Azkaban has done wonders for you," Caleb counters drily, and it takes everything Darian possesses not to take a step, to take hold of him, to shove him against something, to point a wand to his temple and watch him sweat -

"If you don't want an apology," Caleb says, his eyes glinting as he watches Darian struggle, "then what is it you want?"

"I don't want anything," Darian lies, and Caleb laughs, because _he knows_. Because fifteen years and a Dark Lord resurrected don't change the fact that Caleb has always seen through Darian, and not everything can be forgotten.

"Yes you do," Caleb says, "and I'll give it to you, Darian, if you tell me what it is."

Darian stops, digging his nails into his palm, because it has been a very long time since he has played this game, and he has never liked to lose.

"Say I want nothing," Darian says slowly, because he knows if this were true, he would have already won. "Say," he added, leaning into the depths of his callousness, "that I _never_ wanted anything from you, and that despite your obvious vanity" - he takes a step, permitting a smile to pull at the corners of his lips as Caleb's mirth promptly fades from his face - "that remains true now?"

"Then," Caleb manages eventually, clearing his throat, "to that I would say good on you, Darian, as I have nothing to offer you," he finishes.

For a moment, standing in their vat of lies, a wave of loathing swells between them.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," Darian remarks. "What exactly _was_ it that mattered to you in the end?" he muses, and Caleb, rightfully, says nothing, his gaze dropping to his feet. "I never claimed to be much, personally," Darian continues, shrugging. "Certainly nothing worth enumerating - "

He stops as Caleb jerks his head up sharply, and he realizes with a sinking feeling what he has done before Caleb even says the words.

"Four things," Caleb says, nearly a whisper, the words torn from his lips and dropped at Darian's feet as though they'd been hoisted out and severed, weighted down by _things they'd rather not remember_ and thudding to the ground between them.

Darian forces himself to take it, suffering the blow. "Yes," he says tightly. "I amounted to the sum of four things." He meets Caleb's blue eyes. "And you," he adds bitterly, "amounted to _none_ \- "

"You offered nothing to me in the end though, did you?" Caleb demands, stepping forward. "There was a reason that of the four, I was _last_ ," he accuses, flinging it at Darian, deigning to believe that in any dimension they have both suffered the same.

"So that's it, then?" Darian seethes, and as he feels the emotion resurrect in his chest - the rage, the fury he once wielded rekindling from a softened, hollowed dullness - he takes a step, backing Caleb against the wall. Darian is no longer the bigger man between them but he suddenly remembers what it is to do this, to _take control_ , and his feet and his pulse and the blood in his veins remember how to move him and so he does it, and Caleb lets him - perhaps because he, too, knows it is owed.

"That's it," Darian says again, the words escaping through his gritted teeth. "That's all there is? I chose my word over you, and so you - "

"Chose to live my life?" Caleb hisses, striking back, his slicked back hair mussed and falling against his forehead the way that Darian remembers. "So I chose not to rot in a fucking cell in Azkaban," he snarls, "and now you blame me for that?"

"No," Darian grounds out, "I blame you for - "

He stops, realizing his chest is pressed against Caleb's, and that neither of them can breathe.

"For making me love a coward," he chokes out, and like venom, it burns them both.

* * *

 _ **Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 1978**_

* * *

In quiet moments, when they were insulated by the solidarity of their company, unburdened by consequences or expectation, it was easy. More than easy -

Natural. Intuitive.

Like breathing.

"I have to respect Potter," Caleb commented as they lay in bed, ruthlessly contemplating the inferiority of their peers. "I don't enjoy it, but I do."

"I know the feeling," Darian muttered, repelled at the thought, but offering his grudging agreement. "He knows where he stands."

"Do we?" Caleb asked, turning to face him, the sheet pulled low over his bare hip. "Do we know where we stand?"

"We're our fathers' sons," Darian replied, "and Death Eaters, in that order. Everything else is trivial."

"Everything else?" Caleb ventured, reaching out to dig his fingers possessively into Darian's hip. He was always that way, demanding and hungry, and with a compulsion to hold on; there was a certain degree of _starved_ to Caleb, and his imprint seemed to cut through skin.

"Only three things matter to me in the end," Darian said, closing his eyes. "My name, my blood, and my word."

He heard the tell-tale rustling of Caleb moving towards him on the bed but kept his eyes closed, sighing; he let Caleb's hand slide up his chest, fixing itself around his mouth, and let Caleb draw blood when he kissed him, hard and rough and mean.

"Four things," Caleb muttered against his mouth, and Darian sighed again.

"Four things," he agreed, indulging him, luxuriating in him and pulling him close.

But it had been harder by the time they got to the end.

"She's nice," Darian said neutrally, when it had become clear the world was waiting for them.

It had been such a trivial thing, at the start: the prospect of a _wife._

"I don't want _nice_ ," Caleb said, and Darian, who had been begging his voice not to shake, said nothing. "I don't look at my life and think _nice_ is what's missing from it, Darian - "

"Riddle me this, then, Caleb - at what point did you think you were going to have a life full of things you _wanted_?" Darian asked, stifling a humorless laugh. "Did you look at your father and think _he_ was happy? Or that _you_ could be, after seeing his life?"

Caleb stiffened, displeased.

"I don't need a lecture from you, Darian," he growled. "I always knew what I'd chosen, and I haven't forgotten."

"Good," Darian declared shortly. "Because whatever this was - "

"Was?" Caleb cut in sharply, and then stiffness fell between them, the warmth of the air suddenly sticky against Darian's throat.

 _My name, my blood, my word,_ Darian reminded himself, shuffling painfully between the things he was made of and forcing himself to be firm.

"There was always an expiration date," Darian reminded him quietly, once he felt he'd managed to regain some control over his own ache. "Whether you're engaged or not, us leaving school means - "

"I know what it means," Caleb snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. "I fucking _know what it means_ \- "

"Then what do you want from me?" Darian interjected roughly, the cut of honesty tearing at his chest. "What am I supposed to say to you? You know everything I know," he added, with a humiliating lilt of desperation. "You made all the same choices I did, and there's nothing I can _do_ \- "

"I know that," Caleb erupted, leaning onto the stone ledge of the viaduct and hanging his head. "I know all of that, but I don't - "

Caleb trailed off, sighing. "There's one thing I don't know," he confessed, and Darian stared straight ahead, not wanting to see the torment in Caleb's eyes that he could hear in the murmur of his voice.

 _We were promised power,_ Darian wanted to tell him, _and we were promised glory for our loyalty, but we were never granted this._

This - whatever this was. Freedom, in parts; love in others. It had never been promised.

It had never been earned.

"You don't need me to say it," Darian told him, letting the thundering swell of melancholy settle between them. "You don't _want_ me to, I fucking promise you that," he added furiously, exhaling. "Your life will be easier if I never fucking say those words to you, I _promise_ \- "

Caleb looked around before gripping his arm, pulling him to his chest. "Darian," he said, and Darian fought something that might have ripped itself from his throat - a sob, or else a scream. "Darian, just tell me - "

"No."

Darian yanked his arm from Caleb's grip, staring at him, at the face he'd learned to memorize. The face he dreaded and coveted in the span of a breath, in the space of a heartbeat.

"I'm doing you a favor, Caleb, believe me."

He took a step back, turning to lean against the stone of the castle viaduct, and Caleb moved to do the same. They stood in silence for several minutes, until Darian's gaze finally snagged on the movement of Caleb's chest.

"I know what I know," Darian offered slowly. _I'm a man who knows things._ "And so do you."

Caleb nodded his understanding, and then Darian turned around, looking out over the lake again. From afar he could see the stillness of the water, and he felt within his soul a desperate need to crash against it, to take it - this world he'd built, the steady rhythm of his unfailing choices - and turn it over, to upend it. To demand something else from himself, from the depths of him; from his heights.

"I can't believe it's over," Caleb said as they stood quietly for a moment, taking in the view; the sun was setting later now, bathing them in the golden glow of afternoon. He would remember this, he thought, his gaze flicking helplessly to Caleb.

The castle, and the afterglow.

"Is it?" Darian asked softly, and Caleb's mouth - his perfect mouth, the fullness of it, the sweetness, the bitter _wrongness_ of it - twisted into a smile.

"No," he said, and Darian stepped closer, shutting his eyes. "Not for us."

* * *

 _ **Malfoy Manor, 1996**_

* * *

"Love," Caleb repeats at a whisper, and the hunger that Darian remembers is there again, taunting him from the glimmer in Caleb's eye.

But he is furious that Caleb has fixated on the wrong word.

" _Coward_ ," Darian reiterates emphatically, slamming a fist into the wall beside Caleb's head in his frustration. "This is about what you _are_ , Caleb - what you _were -_ "

"What does it matter, Darian, whether I'm a coward or not?" Caleb demands angrily, and as their volume escalates, Darian flicks his wand, casting a _Muffliato_ and barring the doors.

"How can it not matter," Darian seethes," what _kind of man_ you are, Caleb?" He steps close again, and doesn't know whether his goal is to intimidate or simply to be closer; perhaps this, like most things with Caleb, is both. "What else is there?"

Caleb hardens at this, his chin thrusting up in defiance.

"Would you prefer I'd walked out of Azkaban with you?" he demands. "Would this be easier for you," Caleb rants tauntingly, "if I were standing here fucking _starved to death_ and _broken_ , and with fucking _nothing_ instead of being someone who could help you _-_ "

"YES," Darian roars, gripping the finery of Caleb's robes and wanting to tear it to pieces in his hands, willing it to dissolve under his fingers, consumed by the pulse of his fury. "Yes, I would have fucking _preferred_ it, Caleb, if you had owned up to what you were, to what you'd _done_ \- "

"Why?" Caleb protests furiously. "What good would it have done?"

"BECAUSE THEN I COULD LOVE YOU STILL," Darian shouts, and then he is convulsing with dry, heaving sobs, the ache of the words tearing open his chest and beating him down to nothing. "Because I could _love you_ ," he says again, frantically this time, his eyes flitting helplessly across Caleb's face, "if you were not," he stammers haltingly, "because I could - because I - "

"Because you love me," Caleb says bluntly, and Darian collapses, letting his forehead fall to Caleb's shoulder as he staggers against him, "and you hate yourself for it."

He twists his fingers in Caleb's robes, wishing he had died in Azkaban.

"I hate you," Darian whispers and then looks up, staring at Caleb, at every memory his face renews. "I hate us _both_ \- "

He is cut off as Caleb's lips meet his and though Darian has been in a cage for fifteen years there is nothing like the fucking captivity of Caleb's kiss, the steady bite of it as greedy and frantic as he remembers - as he has _tried desperately_ to forget but can't and hasn't and fucking _never will_ \- feeling his lips bruise around the clash of jaws and teeth and tongues.

It's hard and rough and mean, like they are. It's angry and unforgiving and bleak, like them. And Caleb is pressed as flat and as furiously against the wall as the deteriorated muscles on Darian's body will allow and Caleb's shaking hands are dropping to his trousers, too hard and too fast and too much. Darian grinds against his hands in a mix of spite and fucking horrific _need_ and Caleb is all too happy to oblige, biting down on Darian's lip as he takes Darian's cock in his hand.

In the midst of wrathful hunger there is a sigh that drags itself from Caleb's lungs and escapes into Darian's mouth, and it is the only softness between them; Darian thinks at first to curse its existence, but as Caleb's breath melts against his lips Darian realizes for the first time that the last fifteen years may have been spent differently but Caleb has longed as fervently and as destructively as Darian has longed, and then there is a reverent slowness, a brief moment of captivating peace, where they both have what they wanted.

It dissipates quickly as Darian shoves Caleb back again, a brusque reminder of who they are now as his hand slips from sliding his thumb across the line of Caleb's jaw in a mix of wrath and rapture to slowly circling his neck, bringing Darian beatifically close to the fantasy he's quietly entertained. It brings him intoxicatingly close to the thoughts he's indulged of tearing the breath from Caleb's lungs for everything he's done, for Darian's destruction at his hands, for the drug that Caleb is, for the love that Darian _hates_ -

But when Caleb shoves him back, lowering himself to his knees, Darian feels the anger subside and an old iteration of himself descends, the parts of him that clamor raucously to be above Caleb - to be _over_ him - resigning themselves to the core of him that remains underneath. He reaches down, gripping Caleb's hair - his hands slick with whatever repulsive, expensive pomade Caleb has taken to using - and working the curls free until his fingers slip through them, tangling in them, tugging at the roots as Caleb's tongue darts across the tip of his cock, his lips sliding over him and taking him deep and swallowing him whole.

Darian teeters on the edge of euphoria and rage and knows it won't last, _can't last,_ and that this is not what he wants - he wants it, yes, _fuck_ , he wants it - but _this_ , Caleb's mouth on his cock, is as unsatisfying as Caleb's apology and so he drags Caleb to his feet, tearing his robes from him and stripping him, inefficiently and with a desperate roughness, until he can see Caleb's gleaming chest. He stares for a moment at the privileged sheen of him - all man now, the muscle pounded into his chest and carved into his abdomen - and then, just as abruptly, Darian turns him around because Darian is going to fuck him, and that is what both of them want.

He reaches around, fumbling for Caleb's button and zipper, and Caleb shoves his hand away, doing it himself; he shoves his own trousers down and kicks them away before bracing against the wall, his forehead pressed against it, his eyes closed.

Darian only realizes Caleb is crying as he chokes out "Fuck me, Darian, _please_ \- "

And he should move, Darian knows, but he is frozen for a moment; he stares at Caleb's flawless skin and remembers this, is struck by how similar it feels. He steps in close, runs his hand over the sharpness of Caleb's edges and digs his fingers in; and when this is not enough, he bites down on Caleb's shoulder, sinking his teeth into muscle until he swears he reaches bone.

"Darian," Caleb pleads, throwing his head back and rutting against him, "Darian - "

 _Do it,_ Darian's mind says, and he reaches for his wand, whispering a spell and pressing against the ready slickness of Caleb; it's slow - he forces himself to go slow, _makes_ himself take his time even though he is dying, drowning, dissolving, pulsing and throbbing - and Caleb's hand is on his own cock, pumping over it as he continues to say Darian's name in a ruthless, exultant refrain. It's this that does it, that pushes Darian over the edge; it's as soon as Darian knows that _Caleb has missed him, Caleb has wanted him, Caleb has longed for him_ that he slides himself inside - and in the same breath, they both gasp.

"My name," Caleb rasps, pounding a fist into the wall and groaning as Darian gives him an unforgiving thrust, "my blood - "

"My word," Darian says gruffly, his pelvis slapping against Caleb's arse as he fucks him and Caleb's grip on his own cock tightens, pumping faster as Darian slams against him; _fury and friction_ , Darian thinks, wishing one or both of them had been stronger and hating himself, hating this, _hating him_ -

"And you," Caleb grits out, spilling onto his hand with a choked out, sobbing gasp, letting Darian bite down on his neck and then replace his teeth - in a sorrowful apology, a gentle atonement - with his lips, brushing them against the top of Caleb's spine.

 _My youth,_ Darian thinks, _will have always been yours -_

"And you," Darian confesses raggedly, seeing stars and the blue of Caleb's eyes as he comes.

* * *

 _ **The Ministry of Magic, 1981**_

* * *

"Do you confess, then," Crouch continued, "to these crimes as I have listed them? To the use of Unforgivables on Muggles and wizards alike?"

 _My name,_ Darian thought, _my blood -_

"Mr Mulciber," Crouch demanded, peering down at him. "We need an answer."

 _Don't do it,_ Caleb mouthed fearfully, shaking his head. _Don't, Darian -_

He tore his eyes away, looking back at Crouch.

 _My word -_

"Yes," Darian said slowly. "I confess."

He watched the gavel fall, watched the uproar around him, watched himself engulfed in cool flames of resignation and sorrow and guilt.

 _And you,_ he thought, watching Caleb's head fall.

There are only four things that matter.

 _Four things, and all that's left of me_

 _is_

 _you._


	4. Perchance to Dream

**Perchance to Dream**

 _Pairing:_ PottGrass (Harry Potter x Daphne Greengrass)

 _Universe:_ Hogwarts era AU

 _Rating:_ T, implied sexual content and implied violence

 _Summary:_ Sleeping Beauty meets Daphne myth meets Harry Potter. When the Dark Lord comes for Daphne Greengrass, her mother enacts a spell that's meant to save her life. Unfortunately for Daphne, some things are a little too tempting to resist.

 _ **P.S.** There has been some confusion: I am **not** removing any of my work. However, I am doing some housekeeping. This eight day extravaganza is made up of four new pieces (two of which have been posted, with two remaining) and four reposted and/or reworked pieces from **Amortentia** (minus the forthcoming Theocissa, which until this point has only been posted as a OS to AO3). This is one of the pieces that was previously in the other collection, but is more suited to this one, and will now find a home here._

* * *

 **I. The Beginning**

 _In the past there lived a King and Queen who ruled a kingdom of old, and who longed every day for a child. After several years of marriage, at last, their wish was fulfilled, and the Queen bore a daughter so beautiful that the King could not contain himself for joy. He ordered a great feast, bidding to it his relations and friends, and sent an invitation to three fairies who were known throughout their kingdom for their gifts, in the hopes that his Princess would grow to be blessed and favored._

 _But there lived another fairy in the kingdom, and one which the King had left out, for the last fairy stood for chaos, and put more stock in spite than good; but fairies always know when they are spurned. After the first fairy blessed the Princess with beauty, and the second blessed her with grace, the wickedest of fairies arrived, demanding her seat at the table. The King, though he shook with fear, refused her, and in the burning of her ire, the wicked fairy bent over the Princess's crib, speaking thusly:_

" _Your Princess will grow in grace and beauty, beloved by all who know her, just as you have blessed her. But for all that she is lovely, so too shall she be cursed, for I would have you heed my warning: for the folly of her parents shall she suffer. Before the sun sets on her seventeenth birthday, she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die; for then shall what you love be mine, so you will suffer as you have bade me."_

 _And without speaking one more word, she turned away and left the hall._

 _Every guest had been terrified, struck speechless by the wicked fairy's curse, but then the third fairy stepped forward, for she had not yet bestowed her gift. She was not as powerful, not as masterly with her magic, but she, like all fairies, was learned and ancient, and, granted the Princess a blessed reprieve: "In the seventeenth year of her age, the Princess shall not die, but merely fall into a deep sleep."_

 _And so, in gratitude and in fear, the King and Queen held tightly to their breaths._

* * *

"Andromeda," Ava called desperately, beating her fists against the wood. "Andromeda, _please_ , I need you - "

The door opened a crack, revealing Andromeda's face; it was just as Ava remembered, despite the many years - the number itself too shameful to admit - that had passed. She was placid and unmoving, regal and unbending - like her sisters.

The best of them, perhaps, in the end.

"What are you doing here?" Andromeda asked; she was cold, but not unkind.

"I need you," Ava said breathlessly, fighting the need to reach for her old friend. She wished for the times when they had been children, for the nights that they had shared, curled around each other and whispering their secrets to the dawn. "The Dark Lord, he's - he's come for us - "

"And what do you want from _me_?" Andromeda asked, her polished brow furrowed. "What is it you think I can do for you?"

"I wouldn't ask anything of you," Ava began hesitantly, a flutter of foolish pride beating senselessly against her chest, "only there was nothing Narcissa or Bellatrix could do." She glanced up pleadingly. "It's my daughter," Ava whispered, drawing a hand to her mouth before looking up to meet Andromeda's eyes. "I'd heard you had one, too," she murmured. It was a weak offering, but all she had to give. "I'd heard you had a daughter yourself - "

"Nymphadora," Andromeda replied, softening slightly at her child's name. "Seven years ago," she added darkly, and then she drew her shoulders back, remembering the bitter taste of the time that had passed.

"Nymphadora," Ava repeated quietly, then stared. "I have a daughter now, too," she said suddenly, feeling an ache in her chest at the thought of her child, tiny and helpless and _cursed_. "I have to keep her safe," she added fiercely, looking up to meet Andromeda's eye. "Even if that means I have to come here to beg."

For a moment, the two witches stared at each other as though one might relent, but Ava knew it would not be her. She had been a mother a matter of days and still she would watch the world burn before dropping her gaze. Let no one question what she would do for her child, she thought silently, least of all the woman before her. Not even as the friend she'd once been.

Power shifted as Andromeda sighed, a tentative surrender. "What has he done?" she asked. "The Dark Lord. What did he do?"

"He has claimed her for his own," Ava said, forcing her voice not to shake. "Punishment for my husband's refusal."

Andromeda swallowed carefully, casting her eyes at her feet as sorrow throbbed between them. "And what is it you think that _I_ can do for you?" she asked quietly.

"Black magic is ancient," Ava whispered. "There is magic you possess that I could never use, or even be taught - "

"My sisters, then," Andromeda supplied, her face hardening defensively at their mention. "Ask one of _them_."

"They can't," Ava pleaded. "The Dark Lord - he will know if Narcissa or Bellatrix disobeys him." She fidgeted uncomfortably. "They would be tortured, or worse _-_ "

"But you would still have me risk _my_ life?" Andromeda countered sharply.

 _You risk your life every day for love,_ Ava imagined saying, drawing from her vault of savagery, _for the love you chose over your family. Over your history._

 _Over me._

Ava swallowed her sour protests, trading spite for hope. "I would have you do nothing but take pity on me," she said. _Remember who we were, Andromeda? What you would have done for me then?_ "Nothing but have pity on my daughter, who's done no wrong - "

"The Dark Lord is the side _her family chose_ ," Andromeda reminded her sharply. "If your daughter has been condemned, it's because you sided with him and not with me."

"I - " Ava hesitated, stung. "I only - "

"Perhaps you deserve this," Andromeda noted carefully, the first time she had ever been cruel; and for a moment, Ava's hopes were eclipsed.

"No," Ava gasped, falling to Andromeda's feet and pressing her hands to the cold stone ground. "Please, I beg you, I'll do anything - "

She sobbed, her thin frame shaking as she emptied her breath at the other witch's feet. Time passed; a moment, or years, and then Andromeda's hand came down, stroking Ava's hair and silencing her, her fingers cool and comforting like they'd been when they were girls.

"There is a spell," Andromeda murmured eventually. "There is one. And I'll give it to you," she said softly, looking down to meet Ava's eye, "for the love we once shared. _And_ ," she added thoughtfully, "because I have nothing to gain by being selfish."

"You have every reason to," Ava murmured truthfully, still clinging to her old friend's skirts.

Andromeda sighed again, placing a palm on her head. "There is a purity spell," she ventured. "An old one. Not quite dark arts," she added, "but blood magic. Strong." She paused. "Powerless if broken," she warned.

"What is it?" Ava asked breathlessly, peering up. "What must I do?"

"It's not what _you_ must do, but what _your daughter_ must do," Andromeda supplied firmly. "Virtue will seal the spell, and fasten her within a disillusionment of her own blood. But if it is broken - "

"It won't be," Ava cut in, shaking her head. "I'll teach her. I'll keep her safe."

"So be it, then," Andromeda said, raising her up to look her in the eye. "If you're willing to be watchful - "

"I am," Ava agreed. "I'll do anything." She beat her small fist against her chest, in certainty; in warning. _Let no one question that._

Andromeda nodded her approval. "I'll teach you," she said, gesturing for Ava to follow; as Ava hurried through the doorway after her, Andromeda paused, rotating slowly.

"What's her name?" Andromeda asked softly. "Your daughter."

Ava felt her heart melt, the sweetness of the name still new, and the most beautiful thing she'd ever tasted on her tongue.

"Daphne," she whispered back, surrendering her infant's name to the wind.

* * *

 **II. The Princess**

 _The King and Queen, desiring to save their child, were careful to shelter her from any misfortune, commanding that all the spindles in the kingdom be burnt up. In their destruction, they believed their daughter to be safe, forgetting that the magic of fairies may often deceive a humble mortal's mind. In the absence of threat, the King and Queen thought their daughter safe from harm, and so they carried on, content to believe themselves at peace._

 _The maiden grew up, adorned with all the many gifts of the fairies, and the qualities they had promised; and she was so lovely, so modest, kind, and clever, that no one who saw her could help loving her. But still, the kingdom swallowed fear at the backs of their throats, not wishing to bring about the wrath of the wicked fairy; and so the Princess remained sheltered, ignorant of her curse._

* * *

Daphne stood on the platform at King's Cross, nodding her assent as her mother swept a dark curl from her cheek.

"You'll be good, won't you?" Ava asked gently, kneeling to face her. "You'll remember what we've taught you?"

"Yes, Mother," Daphne replied quietly, her eyes wide as she surveyed the platform. "I'll remember."

"Don't forget," Ava reminded her nervously. "Modesty, Daphne, and - "

"Virtue," Daphne supplied, nodding, though at eleven years old, she scarcely knew what that meant; only that she was to keep to herself, to be _good, Daphne, to be kind and loving, but to protect yourself from harm_.

She was still glancing shyly around her; aside from her sister Astoria, she'd been exposed to few other children before coming to school. They all seemed lively and excitable, with more life in them than she'd ever managed. It was enough to stir a worry in her chest, a fluttering against her lungs.

She walked quietly through the train corridors, anxiously twisting her long auburn waves around her finger, when he suddenly appeared in front of her and she gasped, leaping back with a start.

"Sorry," he said.

She swallowed, momentarily paralyzed by the jewel-toned green of his eyes. He was coltish, earnest; he looked thin and impish, ever so slightly lost, and for a moment, she wanted to reach out, to take his hand and settle it in hers, to whisper _isn't it frightening?_

 _Isn't it all too much?_

"It's alright," she returned quietly, feeling foolish from fear.

"Want to come sit with us?" he offered, gesturing inside the compartment. There was another boy in there, a red-headed one, who looked kind enough; she could do it, Daphne thought. She could make a friend. _Two_ friends, even.

But the first boy, with the black hair, was waiting patiently, looking at her with something she'd never seen before, and she could not look away.

 _Someday, someone will look at you with something in his eyes,_ her mother had told her, _something that frightens you and calls to you, and you must not give in._

She shook her head, the word _no_ frozen on her tongue.

"Alright, then," the black haired boy said, an air of mischief to his smile. "Then maybe I'll see you later."

 _You must not give in._

"Maybe," she whispered, feeling her heart thud as she turned away.

* * *

"I'm something of a magic hat, you know," it murmured in her ear. "I can see what you cannot; and I know that you have terror behind you, and more to come before you, and I know that an unfulfilled curse lies in your wake."

But she wasn't listening; she was looking for the boy with the jewel-toned eyes, helplessly scanning the crowd.

 _I want him,_ she told the hat. _I'll do whatever it takes._

"Ah, well, with ambition like that, there's only one place for you, my dear," it told her. "But like so many before you, you will suffer the price for your desires." A pause. "Are you certain that's what you want?"

 _Him,_ she thought vehemently. _Whatever it costs me._

"Then heed my warning, Daphne Greengrass," the hat murmured to her, its voice low and throbbing in her ear, "that you will fail, and you will stray from yourself for your sacrifice. But that's the price, and if you'll pay," it suddenly sang, falsely jubilant as it drew all eyes from the crowd, "then SLYTHERIN will be your way!"

She heard applause, felt the drum of it wash over her, her heart pulsing in her chest. Once, twice, a third, and then she saw him in the crowd as the hat was lifted from her head.

 _Daphne,_ she mouthed, reaching out a hand as she passed him. Her fingers brushed his as she followed the trail of green; emerald, like his eyes, only somehow less vibrant.

"Harry," he whispered back, and he frightened her and called to her.

* * *

"Daphne," he called, running after her. She turned slowly, feeling her breath catch as she met his eyes.

"Harry," she said, speaking his name aloud for the first time despite the knowledge of it beating senselessly against her thoughts.

The moment was short lived.

"Potter," Pansy sniffed derisively, nudging Daphne aside to stand, arms crossed, before him. "What do you want with her?"

 _You're too sweet,_ Pansy had said to Daphne, pursing her lips as she surveyed her over breakfast. _You need to toughen up._

 _What?_ Daphne asked, puzzled. She was thinking of her mother's advice - _be kind, Daphne, be good -_ but this girl didn't seem to think so, and Daphne was dazzled by her confidence, muted by her grit.

 _Don't worry,_ Pansy assured her, grinning broadly as she smoothed a curl behind Daphne's ear. _I'll teach you._

"I - nothing," Harry said, brows furrowed in puzzlement. "I was just - "

"Get lost, Potter," Pansy snapped, the pertness of her nose seeming even more distinct as she raised it in the air. "Get back to your blood traitor friends, won't you?"

"But," Daphne whimpered, barely making a sound; her mouth opened and closed helplessly around the words _don't go,_ but nothing emerged. Harry met her glance, stony-eyed, the green of his gaze suddenly cold and injured.

"My mistake," he said, swallowing, and as he backed away it was all she could do not to run to him, to take hold of him and beg forgiveness -

"That's how that's done," Pansy said smugly, throwing an arm around her shoulders and turning her in the opposite direction. "Now. Let's talk about how to use guilt as a weapon."

* * *

Pansy's nose wrinkled in disgust.

"Ugh," she said, gesturing across the Great Hall. "Looks like someone figured out how to wake the mudblood."

Blaise glanced up, his teeth cutting predatorily across his lips as he smirked. "Pity," he remarked.

Daphne watched bushy-headed Granger run across the hall to Harry's arms and promptly felt a surge of something - hating her, envying her, longing to be her; of burning up and aching all at once.

 _Potter's_ arms _,_ she corrected herself too late.

"Mudblood," Daphne repeated, looking to Pansy for approval.

"Look at you," Pansy remarked, surprised. "I think that's the first nasty word you've ever said." She paused, looking impressed. "I think I like it, Greengrass."

"I like it too," Daphne agreed, watching Potter's eyes light up, watching Granger's chin rest on his shoulder. _Mudblood,_ she thought, scowling. _I hate you, mudblood._

The thought alone was a thrill; it coursed through her and it startled her. How easy it was, how fine it tasted; _hate._

But then he looked up and met her eye - _Harry,_ she thought, breathless, remembering the brush of his fingers against hers - and there was something there, something wild, and she knew he wasn't seeing anyone but her.

 _Sorry,_ she whispered to the universe, feeling sheepish with remorse; but then he looked back at Granger, and Daphne reached inside herself and took a piece of her envy, carving it up from her soul and slipping it in her pocket.

Something to keep her warm.

* * *

He was staring into nothing, looking tired. Looking sad. A mournful exhaustion, she thought, and one that she couldn't overlook.

She took a seat beside him, daintily tucking her skirt under herself and then sitting in silence. She had nothing to say, really. What had she even said to him, after years of stolen glances?

He glanced at her; she stared straight ahead. He seemed to understand the offering, though, and shifted slightly, his arm brushing hers. He inhaled and she felt his chest expand gratefully beside her, existing in her space, sharing in her presence. She listened to the sound of his breath, felt herself fill as he exhaled, until they matched in rhythm.

A blissful cadence against a backdrop of flaws.

"Trelawney says I'm going to die," he remarked. "I saw the Grim in my tea."

"You're not going to die," she replied, setting her hand down to lean back against the cold stone. He lifted his own hand instinctively, like a reflex, and then set it back down, his pinky grazing hers.

"I appreciate that," he said, turning to her and offering up a weary smile.

She met his eyes and held her breath; between them, time passed and pulsed.

"Why is it I can't stop thinking about you?" he asked her, like he could read her thoughts. "You avoid me, and yet - "

 _You must not give in._

"I'm not avoiding you," she lied, lifting her hand to trace a finger over his knuckles. They were sharp and narrow and bruised. Casualties, she supposed.

"You just can't be seen with me," he sighed, his lips quirking down in disappointment as he glanced down at her touch.

"It's - " she began, then trailed off, unconvinced. "Complicated, I guess."

"To be my friend?" he asked, looking back at her face. He scanned it purposefully, and she wondered if he were trying to commit it to memory.

"Far too complicated for that," she breathed, pulling her hand back to her lap.

* * *

He caught up to her in the courtyard, breathless; she could scarcely imagine him any other way.

"The Yule Ball," he offered hastily. "I thought you might - "

"I can't," she whispered, catching Pansy's eye across the courtyard.

 _It's easy,_ Pansy had said, running her slender fingers through Daphne's hair. If Pansy's hands had shaken, Daphne hadn't noticed. Her eyes were trained on Pansy's face, on the steel in her gaze, the supple parting of her mouth; the way Pansy leaned towards her, cross-legged, making Daphne's bed another territory within her vast dominion.

 _Aren't you curious?_

 _Am I?_ Daphne had thought, licking her lips, nipping at them hesitantly. She said nothing, and Pansy waited, a flicker of doubt appearing before she seemed to toss it roughly aside, leaning forward slowly, trapping her breath between them.

Pansy's lips were soft and full, and Daphne closed her eyes, giving in. Her mind went first to the soft breeze of peony, the smell of Pansy's freshly washed hair, and then to the taste of her; a lick of safety, a hint of sweet. She pressed back, gentle at first, and then Pansy was on top of her, joyful and free, their bodies flush, legs tangled.

 _Daphne,_ Pansy breathed, and then, cruelly, Daphne's breath caught up to her, rising up in her throat and strangling her as she remembered her name on his lips, his jeweled green eyes, his face in her dreams.

 _You must not give in._

 _Harry,_ she hadn't said back, but she hadn't said Pansy either. The other girl had pulled away, fragile and injured, her petals creased, and it was two days of sulking, of tacit betrayal.

"I can't," Daphne whispered, catching Pansy's eye across the courtyard, and Harry nodded, following her gaze.

* * *

He was shaking, his fingers clenched loosely; she'd seen them, seen each one removed, one by one, from Cedric Diggory's body. Nobody was looking and she ran to him, throwing herself on her knees before him, pressing her forehead to his.

"He wanted me to bring him back," Harry muttered. "He wanted me to bring him back to his parents - "

"It's okay," she whispered. _Isn't it frightening? Isn't it all too much?_ "It's okay, Harry, I'm here - "

At the sound of his name on her lips, he looked up, his face haunted, the jewel-toned eyes cloudy with something that looked empty, the soul within them devolved to a single glint.

"Daphne," he said, and she brought his hand gratefully to her lips before he was suddenly dragged away.

* * *

"You must be more careful than ever," Ava said, her fingers trembling as she reached out, tucking a curl behind Daphne's ear. "Everything I've taught you, you must remember."

 _Be good, Daphne, hold tight to your virtue._

"I know," Daphne said impatiently, itching with answerless questions. "But do you think it's true? Is _he_ " - her voice was hushed, in a trained way, in a way that had not known fear itself, but a transitive version of it, passed on through whispers and furtive stares - "is he really back?"

"Don't concern yourself with gossip," Ava commanded sharply, but she looked lost and far away. "Keep to yourself and you'll be fine."

"But if he's back," Daphne protested, "if Harry's telling the truth - "

"Harry?" Ava repeated, her eyes fixing on Daphne's in horror. "The Potter boy?"

"Yes," Daphne insisted, more fervently than she might have if it had been any other name off her mother's tongue. "If he's right, and You-Know-Who really _is_ back - "

"You must not speak to him," Ava said firmly. "To the Potter boy. You must not. Do you understand?"

Her grip tightened around Daphne's shoulder, and Daphne flinched under the pressure.

"Yes, Mother, I underst- "

"You must never speak to him, or any other," Ava whispered. _You must not give in._ "Promise me, Daphne. Promise me you'll keep your distance."

"I promise," she said, and for a moment, she really believed she had meant it.

* * *

 **III. The Prince**

 _Wherever there is a Princess to be hidden, there is surely a Prince there to tempt._

* * *

"What are you doing here?" she asked him breathlessly. Her hair was loose and flowing down her back, her bare feet cold against the earth, and as he slid his palm against her cheek she leaned into his touch, closing her eyes.

"I don't know," he confessed miserably, his thumb brushing over her lips.

 _You must not give in._

"Don't," she whispered. "We're - we're friends."

"My friends don't look at me like you do," he told her, taking her face between his hands.

She tilted her chin up, fighting for air, fighting for space; fighting him, fighting herself, fighting everything -

 _Whatever it takes -_

 _Whatever it costs me -_

His lips brushed against hers and she sighed, the breath stolen from her lungs. His touch was impossibly light and yet it bruised her, gripped her; it shook her by the core of her being, pulsed against her, made her whole. She pressed back, her chest against his, and her breath carried like a song, like a whisper, threading through her and binding her to him until there could be no separation between the beat of his heart and hers.

"My friends don't kiss me like that," he said, his eyes fluttering open.

"Your friends are fools," she murmured.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Pansy demanded, arms crossed. "You were out all night. _Again_."

 _Daphne,_ he had murmured to the skin of her shoulder, to the jut of her hip, to the curve of her thigh.

 _Harry,_ she had whispered to the hollow of his throat, to the flat of his stomach, to the arch of his back.

"Nowhere," Daphne replied, her eyes low. She'd never been much of a liar despite Pansy's best efforts, and the curve of her best friend's lips straightened and tightened, the twist of her mouth a shout of disapproval, a scream of exposure.

"You'd better be careful." _Be good, Daphne, hold tight to your virtue, lest a piece of it break._ "I don't want to see you get hurt."

 _You must not give in._

"I won't, Pansy."

* * *

"Do you dream of me?"

He paused his careful wanderings, the studious trail of his fingertips, replacing his touch with his lips and then drawing himself up to look at her.

"Always," he said with a shudder. "If not you, then - "

 _Him,_ she knew, the Dark Lord; for Harry was cursed, _far_ more cursed than she, whatever her mother insisted.

"My best dreams," he explained, turning her to look in her eye.

"What do you see?" she whispered.

"Your face," he replied, tracing a finger along the curve of her cheek, making her a masterpiece. "Looking up at me. Your eyes are closed," he added, "but I can see them still, I know them - and I kiss you, and you wake." He stared at her; ravenous, a gentle greed. "Do you dream of me?"

"Always," she replied. _But my dreams are of carnage, of pain; of chaos and fear._ "Without fail."

 _If not you, then -_

"And what do you see?" he prompted, jutting her chin up, like a child.

She met his eyes. "Jewels," she lied, watching the spark in his eyes. _Pleasure and pain, aching and suffering._ "Emerald and jade. And then you," she said, softening into truth, "looking at me with an arch around your head, broken and bleeding."

"But you make me whole?" he prompted, unafraid. Never afraid.

 _You must not give in._

She forced a smile. "I make you whole," she promised, _after I've ripped you to shreds, and the world carries on, laughing, while we revel in our destruction._

* * *

 _You will suffer the price for your desires -_

He kissed her feverishly, pressing her back against the bark, her feet slipping against the sodden earth as she burned under his touch. His fingers tightly gripped her hips, pulling her in and pushing her back, a dance between them that trapped her as much as it drew her in, his lips urgent against hers.

"I'll have to leave," he rasped, "I'll have to go - "

"You wouldn't," she whispered, pulling him to her by the collar as though to prove it, to punctuate her point. "You _can't_."

"I'll have to," he said again; in a hero's voice, a man's voice. "I have to defeat him, Dumbledore gave me a mission - "

 _Whatever it costs me -_

She drew his hand to the gaping of her shirt, to the heart pulsing below his fingers, to what had always been his to command. He met her eye, tentatively at first, then hungrily, and she, pressed between him and the impossibility of escape, surrendered.

"You'd leave me?" she asked, digging her nails into the pale skin of his chest, drawing angry red welts to the surface. _You'd hunt me down like this, like prey; you'd haunt me and devour me, and think me willing in the chase?_

 _You'd be right_ , she thought desperately, as he tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling her head back to look at her, to scour her face, to draw her soul out of her breath and make use of it, make a home in it, make it _his._

 _Heed my warning, Daphne Greengrass -_

"I love you," he whispered, his lips against hers, and for all that she yearned and for all that he gave, it was tender and gentle, a shout that faded to a whisper.

 _You will fail, and you will stray from yourself for your sacrifice -_

He slipped himself inside her, filling her, and she gave in, feeling as though she grew roots, her face lost in the canopy, her hair turned to leaves, that she might never be parted from him or this moment; let only her shining beauty remain, she thought, a gaping piece of her filled by his desperation, by his consent to be ruled by her, by her name on his lips.

But something broke, too; something that had once been safe. She felt stripped and hollow, exposed and torn, and for a moment she gasped for breath, her lungs emptied of air. With him a heavy numbness came over her, over what used to exist, what once was a person and was now only landscape, devolved and laid to waste under the blaze of his touch - powerful, powerless. Power that amounted to rot.

"I love you," he said again, and she breathed it in, hungrier than ever.

 _That's the price, and if you'll pay -_

"I love you, but I'll have to leave."

* * *

"Ah, Daphne Greengrass," the Dark Lord said, his thin, reptilian lips curling into a gruesome smile. "I've been looking for you."

 _What have you done,_ her mother screamed, _what have you done?_

Daphne did not flinch.

 _I was the price, and now I will pay._

* * *

 **IV. The Curse**

 _It happened one day, she being already seventeen years old, that the Princess was left behind, alone in the castle. She wandered about into all its nooks and corners, into all the chambers, her steps following as fancy took her, until she came at last to an old tower. There was a key in the door, and though she knew in her soul that she must not peer within its contents, the door gave way under her touch, revealing inside an old woman with a spindle, diligently spinning her flax._

 _She was sorely tempted, having never seen a spindle in the sheltered years of her existence, and when the old woman - who was really the wicked fairy - invited her to spin, no sooner had she touched it when she pricked her finger with it, enacting the wicked fairy's evil curse. In the moment that the curse was fulfilled, the Princess fell back upon the bed that stood within the tower, and lay in a deep sleep. All those within the castle, the King and Queen and with them, the whole court; the horses in their stalls; the dogs in the yard; the pigeons on the hearth; all became still, and slept like the rest, frozen in place by the wicked fairy's curse._

 _Then the wind ceased, and not a leaf fell from round the castle; and then there grew a hedge of thorns, thicker and thicker, until at last the whole castle was hidden from view, and nothing could be seen of it._

* * *

" _Crucio,"_ she said blankly, her lids heavy where her wand hand was light.

She'd once thought it so easy, hadn't she? Hadn't she enjoyed the taste of it?

 _Hate._

The gap in her soul where Harry had been was now filled, and she floated in a trance, her will bent to the Dark Lord's wishes, her mind only clear at the tip of his wand.

She was his during the day, an instrument beholden to his conviction, his _Imperiused_ rose, and she wondered, amongst flickers of cognition, if she had not made it easy for him. If she'd simply surrendered her waking self so as not to feel, and then not to suffer, and if she now merely floated in some kind of powerless sleep.

But if her waking was sleep, of sorts, then her sleep was descent into madness. At night she dreamt of things long passed, a brush of a young boy's fingers against a young girl's hand, a name, a confession, a stolen kiss, a gifted virtue; the torment of pasts. She dreamt of waking, of arches of flowers, of blood and bone; the torment of future.

Before her, Pansy convulsed. Amycus Carrow, watching from afar, smiled his slow, cutting smile; a smile unburdened by futures and pasts.

Daphne Greengrass - _be good, Daphne, hold tight to your virtue, lest a piece of it break -_ lowered her wand, feeling nothing.

* * *

 **V. The Castle**

 _While the Princess slept under the curse's trap, her Prince returned, having heard of the darkness that had passed and wishing to wake the Princess from her sleep. Many tried to dissuade him, but the Prince would not listen to the words._

 _He was stopped before he reached the Princess by a fearsome monster, who was the wicked fairy, so corrupted by her own evil that she was gruesome, and scarcely recognizable. The wicked fairy tried desperately to stop the Prince, and nearly destroyed him; but the Prince, armed with the Sword of Truth, the Shield of Valor, and being the one foretold to break the curse, threw the sword directly into the wicked fairy's heart, shattering what little remained and letting her scatter to dust on the wind._

 _The Prince was himself blessed by fairies, and protected by their gifts, and so when he drew near the hedge of thorns, it bloomed into an arch of flowers, which parted and bent aside to let him pass. He saw the sleeping dogs, the horses and pigeons, and he crept higher, still further, with all so quiet he could hear his own breathing, until he came at last to the tower, and went up the winding stair, and opened the door of the little room where the Princess lay._

 _And when he saw her looking so lovely in her sleep, he could not turn away his eyes; and presently he stooped and kissed her, and she awakened, and when her eyes met his, she gazed on him with wonder, knowing there would be no more curse._

* * *

He was as she had dreamt him when she opened her eyes, a hazy arch around his head, blood dripping down his face; it was salty on her tongue and she licked it from her lips, metallic and gritty, the bitter taste of his sacrifice. He pulled her from the wreckage, his face swimming before her eyes, his arms wrapping themselves around her, his lips somehow forming the words _I'm sorry_ and _I love you_ and _I need you_ and _I should never have left you_ and _I dreamt you a thousand times_ but she shook in his arms, a deafening roar in her mind, a year's worth of thoughts flooding through her as she looked upon bodies that lay still at the end of her wand.

"Harry," she begged, clinging to him, "Harry - "

"Daphne," he whispered, and the voices quieted, the rush of blood in her ears slowing to a drip. "It's over now." He brought his lips to her neck, bearing down; for a moment he sank his teeth into her, like he could tear her apart - _do it,_ she thought, _rip me to shreds, revel in my destruction_ \- and then he kissed her, like he would mend her. Like he would worship her. "It's over."

"I've done things," she told him, digging her nails into his back and shutting her eyes so as not to see. _Isn't it frightening? Isn't it all too much? And all because you frightened me, and you called to me, and I am the fool who gave in._

He pulled back and looked at her - a hero, a man, a set of jeweled eyes. A torment of futures and pasts.

"The curse is over," he promised, pressing his bloody lips to her knuckles, to mend her and to worship her. "The curse is over, and I'm yours."

 _Are you certain that's what you want?_

 _Him,_ she thought vehemently, as he sank with her into the broken bits and rubble. _Whatever it costs me._

* * *

 **a/n:** The title comes, of course, from _Hamlet_ :

 _To die, to sleep,_ _  
_ _To sleep, **perchance to Dream** ; aye, there's the rub,_ _  
_ _For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,_ _  
_ _When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,_ _  
_ _Must give us pause._

And the story inspiration comes from _The Sleeping Beauty_ by the Brothers Grimm and the myth of Daphne and Apollo.


	5. Pretty Things

**Pretty Things**

 _Pairing:_ Voldetrix (Voldemort x Bellatrix), Voldecissa (Voldemort x Narcissa)

 _Universe:_ Potterverse

 _Rating:_ M for sex, language

 _Summary:_ It seems the young Dark Lord has an eye for the daughters of the House of Black.

* * *

On the day she meets him, Bellatrix Black is sitting quietly in the dilapidated front room of her family's vast estate, mindlessly charming long-unused champagne glasses into glittering, glinting birds as she listens to her parents chatter nervously in the next room. They only use the few front rooms and the bedrooms now; this house has not been fit for company for at least a generation, and it seems to be aging even more poorly than her parents.

"They say this Lord Voldemort is gaining popularity," Cygnus says, and Bella notes with a careful, calculated observation that her father's voice is strained and nervous. "They say he has a following among the Sacred Twenty-Eight - "

"He calls himself a _Lord,_ Cygnus," Druella counters, sounding tired; Bella knows her mother has not been sleeping well, and has been brought particularly low by the reality of the Black's dwindling fortune, overworking household charms to cover the fact that they no longer possess the elves to do it for her. "Are we really to take him seriously?"

"We are," Cygnus grunts back, "if we ever plan to eat again. Three daughters," he scoffs. "As if I have anything useful to offer him."

Bella hears this and because she is not a fool - and because she has been warned, and therefore primped and dressed - and though she may not be a very experienced woman or an especially beautiful one, she knows what all women know, which is that if she performs her choreography correctly, she can convince a man to look too long, and then fall too deep.

This is a power she learned at her mother's knee rather than the drafty dungeons at Hogwarts, and it is a power she thinks she can use.

She knows that he is coming and so she has dressed as well as she is able, with one of her old gowns charmed to cling to her waist, the material artificially brightened to make the emerald green - his color, after all - seem richer than it is. She knows the fact that her father has procured this meeting is not by any particular strength of character aside from his name and what once filled his vault at Gringotts, but she does not intend to waste a moment of it. Her sisters will finish their time at Hogwarts soon and Bella is quite certain that if she can convince this man - this _Lord_ , or so they call him - that she and her family are loyal to his cause, she will have saved them from the wretchedness she lives in now. The near squalor, the laughable deterioration of grandeur, the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black which has dwindled to next to nothing, will not be the future for her sisters, or for herself.

This Lord, whoever he is, will be the difference.

She hears him enter but she waits, she holds herself back and steadies her pulse, listening to him before she sees him, letting his voice paint his image in her mind; he has a steady cadence to his speech, a gentle, calculated lilt that teases of something like control, something like manipulation, and she hears before she sees that this is someone who is accustomed to having his way. _Cygnus,_ he says to her father, and there is a brush of derision there, _what a pleasure,_ and her father stammers his regards, and he says _tell me, you said you had a daughter at home?_ and then she hears footsteps and she waits.

And she waits and she waits and she waits, until suddenly the door is pulled open and he is there, standing in the doorway.

She expects an older man and her breath catches in her throat when she sees him, the flickered light from the candles she has charmed overhead winking against the thick black waves of his hair. His jaw is sharp and angled, his lips thoughtfully curved, his eyes an unsettling, consuming, _inescapable_ blue; he is perhaps in his thirties and he is, as no other man she has seen before has been, exquisitely crafted, perfected by time. She feels her cheeks heat, feels her chest tighten, and as the corners of his mouth tilt up when he sees her, a slow, knowing smile tears the breath from her lungs, catching and coiling up and tightening like a snake in the helpless cavern of her throat.

"Miss Black," he says, his tongue passing slowly over his lips as he looks at her, his stare so absurdly transfixing he strikes her as both effortlessly wild and ruthlessly controlled, like a wave of the sea before it crashes. "I understand you've recently finished your time at Hogwarts, have you not?"

She forces herself to swallow, battles with her quickened breath. "I have," she says, and she wonders why it feels like a confession when it is nothing more than simple truth; she finished her schooling last year, and this is a fact.

"Did you enjoy your time there?" he asks, taking a step towards her. "Do you feel as though" - he pauses, tilting his head as he looks at her - "you have gained all the knowledge you desired?"

His gaze skates hungrily over her and she nods slowly, fighting not to inhale sharply when his eye drops to the curve of her lips and lower, slowly, dripping down her neck like honey. "Yes," she says, but then stops, feeling a tick of displeasure in the tightening of his mouth at her answer.

"Yes," she repeats tentatively, "but also not fully, Mister - " she pauses expectantly, and he smiles, his teeth flashing.

"Lord," he corrects her, and though she might have agreed with her mother an hour ago that such an affectation seemed silly, foolish, pompous, unacceptably pretentious and bloated with conceit - she can't help but let the words _My Lord_ escape in a whisper from her lips, the air around them changing.

"But not fully?" he prompts, leaning back against the wall. "Tell me, Miss Black - "

"Bellatrix," she murmurs, and he smiles again, the arch of his lips a blessing and a curse; a well from which she already knows she will never draw enough, and she aches at the prospect of emptiness.

"Bellatrix, then," he says, inclining his head. "Do you have reservations about what you have learned? Are you" - he pauses, taking a step towards her - "not _satisfied,_ then, from your time studying under Albus Dumbledore?"

She feels dizzied now, his chest so close to hers, the pressure of her breath between them igniting her from within, but still she does not miss the derogatory edge to his tone when she says the headmaster's name. "I am grateful," she says, drawing moisture to her lips, "to have studied there, but I find myself with certain - "

She trails off, watching his eyes fall to where her breath is heaving, the swells of her breasts pressing against the gown she wears; the very last of her finery, though he doesn't need to know that. Perhaps he's better suited for what's underneath.

"Certain?" he prompts, tilting her chin up. "Certain . . . _extracurricular_ interests, perhaps?"

Bella pauses, trying desperately not to step falsely, to presume something that will put distance between them. "I have curiosities," she confesses, and a glint of satisfaction appears in his blue eyes, a frost that slides against the azure before fading, leaving her to wonder if she's imagined it. "My family," she explains, remembering the task her father has implicitly entrusted to her, "the ancient House of Black has been host to far greater magic than I was ever taught, or could hope to learn while in the presence of such" - she inhales sharply, taking a risk - "forgive me, but a doddering old fool," she says quietly, and he crows with laughter.

"He _does_ dodder, doesn't he?" Lord Voldemort exclaims, chuckling, his blue eyes lit from within with mirth. "You're not wrong, Bellatrix. But what, I wonder," he says, sliding a finger along the underside of her jaw to look into her eyes, "shall we do about the gaps in your education?"

She senses opportunity and leaps without hesitation.

"They say you are a far better wizard than he is," she says quietly. "And that you are sometimes given to consorting with others who are like-minded."

"Ah," he murmurs, his breath hovering above the curve of her lips, "and do you mean to suggest that _you_ are of my mind, then, Bellatrix?"

"I find," she says carefully, reaching up to place a hand against his chest; she lays it there, testing his reaction, and when she feels his ribs expand to accommodate a sharp intake of breath she smiles, venturing, "I find, My Lord, that the mind is rather limited without the means to carry out its intent. After all," she adds, her hand slipping lower, reaching the hardness she suspects - _ah, and yes, confirms -_ is there, "how else would we hold a wand?"

"Clever girl," he exhales hungrily, shifting against her hand. She can feel him through the material and she is more than curious now; she is ardently drawn to him, and eager in a way that has escaped her until she's seen his face. "You wish to learn from me?"

"Learn from you," she agrees, slowly lowering herself to her knees. "Serve you," she says, looking up at him, and he licks his lips again, contemplating the cost as her fingers flutter to his zipper, to the obstacles between them.

"You're dedicated, I'll give you that," he remarks grimly, shaking his head, "but if you want me to save your family from ruin, you'll have to do a little bit more than that." She nearly leaps back, startled, and he bends to look her in the eye, smirking as he taps her forehead. "You'll have to learn to control your thoughts, Bellatrix," he murmurs, "and to learn that anything that passes through them is well within my realm of comprehension."

"My Lord," she says frantically, surprised by how easily the title comes to her, "I didn't - I only meant to - "

"Oh, don't worry," he says, brow arching slightly. "I'm not displeased. You're only human; I can't fault you your selfish motivations. But if I'm to make use of you," he says, taking her face in his hand and staring at her, turning her chin to look at her face from every angle, "I'll need to know that you can do what you're told."

He stands again, taking her hand and bringing her fingers to his trousers. "As you were," he says simply, and she hesitates but takes a breath, freeing the length of his hardness from the fabric.

She leans forward, wetting her lips before spreading them over the head of his cock, taking him in her mouth with a slow, exacting effort. She laps her tongue underneath the head of him, swirling it around his tip, and listens for a tell-tale hiss between his teeth before taking him deeper in her mouth, sliding her lips along the swollen column of his shaft.

"You're a good girl, aren't you," he grits out, thrusting his pelvis against her mouth; his cock hits the back of her throat but she takes it, lost and undone by the image of him above her, godlike and powerful, and _My Lord, My Lord, My Lord -_

"You'll serve me well, won't you?" he croons to her, a dark brush of curls falling onto his forehead. "You'll do as I ask," he pants, "won't you, Bellatrix?"

She wants to answer, to gasp _yes, yes, anything_ but can't, hungry as she is, the swell of him in her mouth and pounding at her throat; her eyes water as he reaches down to pull her hair, yanking her up and setting her atop the gaudy grand piano that sits, broken and untuned, in the center of the room, the clang of keys a distraction until he mutters a _Muffliato,_ flicking his wand at the door.

"Tell your father," he says, forcing her gown up her legs and sliding her forward, prompting another loud bang of the keys, "he'll be in my good graces. I'll make sure you and your sisters are favored," he added, shoving her legs apart and thrusting into her, his teeth gritted as he grips her hips, "and your husband will be - "

"Husband?" Bella gasps, throwing her head back; he is striking relentlessly against a part of her she has only found on her own, only at night, alone, so deeply unsatisfied with others. "But - My Lord - "

"I can't be beholden to a wife, Bellatrix," he says, grimacing as he speeds up his thrusts, matching them to the shortness of her breath. "But I'll keep you close, and you'll do my bidding" - he leans forward, tearing the bodice of her gown to free her breasts, wrapping his lips around the hardened bead of her nipple before scraping his teeth over it, smiling as she cries out - "and I'll give you power, Bella, which is what you _really want - "_

She shudders and comes with a cry, and he laughs, throwing his head back, sweat gleaming from his forehead as he pulls out of her and turns her around, her palms hitting the keys with a loud, discordant clash of notes, a strident lack of melody that seems to match the devolution in her head, her usual quiet, dainty string of thoughts building up and crashing with a bang as he thrusts against her from behind, lifting her hips.

"Bellatrix," he says, her name punctuated by the slap of him his hips against her arse, "you're mine," he growls, "aren't you?"

"Yes," she promises, gasping as he yanks her long dark curls, "yes, My Lord - My Lord, I will be your faithful servant - "

He comes with a groan, finally stilling, and slowly, slowly eases his grip on her hair, leaning forward to whisper in her ear. "Bellatrix," he whispers, "you'll love me forever, won't you?"

"Yes," she promises, not even noticing the shudder that thrills up her spine or the festering chatter of warning that echoes in her mind. "Yes, My Lord, I will."

* * *

On the day he meets her, Lord Voldemort is at the Black Estate to see her sister. He is fond of Bellatrix by now, and she is the only thing that keeps his attention; she's the only person who seems to soothe him when things are going poorly, as they very often are.

He finds it is exceedingly difficult these days to find any sort of satisfaction in his work. Albus Dumbledore is an infuriating pain in his side, relentlessly blocking any headway that either he or his Death Eaters are able to make in any legitimate forum. Dumbledore, the fool who clearly doesn't trust himself with power - _stuck at Hogwarts_ , Lord Voldemort thinks with a scowl, _as though anyone but an idiot would not recognize that was from fear_ \- seems to think it worth intervening with all his negotiations, all his policies. All his _goals_.

That day in particular, Lord Voldemort has learned that Albus fucking Dumbledore has blocked his _third_ attempt to chip away at the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, and now Lord Voldemort is furious and in need of release. He arrives in a sour mood, hissing at the elf - one that Cygnus and Druella now have, _thank fucking Salazar,_ as he was not particularly enjoying being greeted by the dingy, haphazardly charmed vacancy that was the receiving end of the Black Estate's Floo - and waiting, picturing Bella tied to the iron frame of the bed and thinking that it will be very rewarding indeed.

"Oh," she says, and that's when he meets her, "I didn't realize we were expecting anyone."

He stares at her, at the pale glow of her, a pristine, radiant - _oddly virginal_ , he thinks - waif-like version of Bella, more slender and _silvery_ , almost; like the slice of a crescent moon.

"I'm sorry," he says, which is not a thing he normally says. "You are?"

"Narcissa," she replies, taking a step towards him. She is bold, and light seems to carve itself around her, like she herself could be a source. "Narcissa Black."

"Ah, yes," he remembers, smirking, "the youngest daughter, aren't you?"

"I am," she says, tilting her head to smile coquettishly at him. "The least important, and most forgettable."

He raises an eyebrow, playing along. "We've never met," he says, "or else I'm sure I would remember."

"I'm sure you would," she agrees, "as they say the strength of your mind is unparalleled. But," she adds, lightly chewing her lip as she gazes at him, "I assume you know that."

"Be careful with assumptions, Miss Black," he advises, toying with her. "I think you'll find they're often premature."

"Perhaps," she agrees, "but not in this case."

She is smiling at him still, the shape of her lips a playful, _ever so slightly_ provoking curve; he wonders if its cause is actual impudence, or if she simply enjoys the sparring. He discovers at the same time - with an odd, unsettling clang - that he cannot easily access her thoughts; he sees nothing in her mind, only a tranquil, quiet stillness that belies the particular telling angle of her lips.

Her smile is patient, unwavering; _testing_ , he realizes, and feels oddly shaken.

"Is your sister at home?" he asks, and she nods, gesturing to the recently restored stairwell.

"Yes," she confirms. "I believe she's upstairs, though I can fetch her for you if you like."

"No need," he says, shrugging. "I'll find her." He takes a step and she, for the briefest moment, doesn't move, letting him enter an aura around her which he would consider her _personal space;_ but then she steps back, smiling again.

"You look tense," she comments. "Powerful as you are, I'd imagine you wouldn't be so easily thwarted."

"Thwarted?" he echoes, and it escapes him sharply, a raking demand. "Who says I've been - "

"The bill my father was working on," she murmurs. "It struck me as too - " she pauses, trailing off. "Transparent," she judges finally. "Unappealing for the moderates. By which I mean the cowards," she quips, her smile broadening, "who don't have the stones to choose a side."

It's funny, he recognizes, but can't quite manage to laugh.

He opens his mouth to speak but feels his breath catch before he can, caught on the lip of his uncertainty. "What would you do, then, Miss Black?" he asks, realizing that he is oddly curious, and she offers him a pretty, dainty shrug, pursing her lips in thought.

"If you wish for bold measures, you must appeal to the bold," she says, and he silently marvels that the answer comes to her so easily. "Or," she adds thoughtfully, "if the bold are in scarce supply, then the disenfranchised," she says, and he feels his own brow furrow.

"This Ministry is more alienating than they like to think," she tells him, and then smiles beatifically. "But I'm sure you've thought of all this before," she finishes, and he gapes at her, considering what to say, when he hears Bella's voice carry down through the stairwell.

"My Lord," she calls, and he looks up, "is that you?"

"Yes, Bellatrix, I'll be right there," he says, shaking himself of his momentary astonishment. "I thank you for your insights," he says, turning to the nymph-like blonde beside him, "as they've been very enlightening indeed, Miss Black."

"Narcissa," she says, and then inclines her head. "My Lord," she adds softly in farewell, turning to leave.

"Wait," he says, staring after her. "Are you still - "

"At Hogwarts? Yes," she says, "for one more year. And then who knows?" she says, laughing a little before disappearing around the corner.

Lord Voldemort pauses for a moment, speechless, before heading upstairs with a growl, finding Bella waiting for him in a set of flimsy black lace that he rips from her body with a certain new brand of frustration, a renewed tensing inside him that he discovers has nothing to do with Albus Dumbledore at all when he sees a flash of silvery blonde hair as he comes, collapsing against Bella in a gripping moment of confusion when the name on his tongue is _Narcissa._

He knows a problem when he sees one, and so he makes a point to avoid her; he arranges Bella's marriage to Rodolphus Lestrange, an imbecilic lackey whom he knows he can control, and shifts his occasional visits there. He finds, however, that his interest in the eldest Black sister wanes as her appeal - the redundancy of her devotion - begins to fade; and as his attention wanders, Bella grows more desperate, clinging to him more furiously, giving into tantrums and terrors that become hexes and curses on her household, spinning her into rages that end with bruises and blood and tears.

Now when he fucks her it feels like a chore.

He sees Narcissa Black again perhaps a year later, and it is an accident, and an unfortunate one at that. She's blossomed since coming of age, her figure less waifish and suddenly blessed with curves, her breasts swelling up against the dark silk of her dresses. Of course, he thinks, she has her sister to thank for the return of such materials; but Lord Voldemort does not begrudge her her pride in wearing them.

After all, she is exquisite.

"I see you took my advice," she says to him, her fingers wrapped around the stem of a crystal champagne glass. "Creatures, hm?" she murmurs, the words trapping within the glass as she brings it to her lips. "Clever."

His first instinct is to thank her for the compliment, which infuriates him. He bristles, trying not to watch the dark red stain of her lips that sits in such contrast to the silvery paleness of her skin. He finds, in a moment of weakness, that he cannot help imagining those red lips of hers sliding along the length of his cock, and forces himself to suppress a shudder.

"Narcissa," he says neutrally, coughing as he shifts his stance. "Is it a job you're after?"

She smiles coyly at him, tilting her head. "I find I prefer my wrist without decoration," she says, pulling up the silk of her robe to flash him a glimpse of the creamy pristine expanse of her arm that he suddenly wishes to sink his teeth into. "Don't you?"

 _You're insufferable,_ he thinks, _a thousand times worse than your sister -_

"What is it you want, then?" he asks stiffly, though he's sure he's made a mistake.

"Nothing," she says, though she looks like she's gotten what she came for. "My Lord, will you take this off my hands?" she asks, gesturing to her glass of champagne. "It seems I'm to leave early, and Roddy's quite incapable of being a gentleman," she laments with a stunning conspiratorial glance. "Perhaps keep it as something to remember me by," she suggests, her smile twitching upwards in jest, and he says nothing as she walks away.

He doesn't fuck Bella that night. He sits in the dark with his hand on his cock and he whispers her name to an empty room, willing her out of his system.

Narcissa does not disappear; Cygnus arranges her marriage to Lucius Malfoy, who has been a favorite of his until this particular time. A skilled tactician at his best but a showboating peacock at his core, he knows Lucius won't want to share.

Lord Voldemort corrects himself, grimacing, as he watches Narcissa from afar.

 _He_ doesn't want to share.

As his allegiances - giants, werewolves, dementors - grow more deviant, so too do his Death Eaters, and he finds he excuses their behavior, becoming less concerned with political sleight of hand; he hears Narcissa's voice compelling him to _appeal to the bold_ and so when the reports of _Crucio_ and _Avada_ become more frequent - when the attempts at contact by Dumbledore and the Ministry grow more desperate - Lord Voldemort scarcely notices, his attention still caught on her.

It's unbearable. And what's more, he does not wish to bear it.

"Narcissa," he says, pulling her aside. "I need to speak to you."

"My Lord," she says evenly, her blue-grey eyes flashing with something that is more amusement than surprise, "what about?"

"I," he says, and hesitates; she should _know_ , and he should be able to _see that she knows,_ but there is some mystifying blockage when it comes to her, some impenetrable confusion -

"You?" she asks, and he knows that she is biting lightly on her lip to tease him, to draw out of him whatever it is he seems to unwillingly give her. "You what, My Lord?"

"You can't marry Lucius," he says sharply, and to his horror, she laughs.

"Why not?" she poses, tilting her head. "He's quite a match, I think, My Lord, and I assume you would have - "

He cuts her off with a kiss, pressing her back against the wall and ravaging her, kissing her with all the fury and frustration he has let build while he's watched her, while he's been without her, while she's existed, having the audacity to orbit him and still not _be his_ -

She shoves him away, drawing a hand to her lip. "My Lord," she says, her eyes wild. "Think of my sister, My Lord - "

"She's not - " he says, and hesitates. "I don't - "

"I'm not free," she reminds him, and he instinctively reaches for his pocket, for his wand that he can feel is growing heated where it sits against his chest. "Curse me if you like," she adds pointedly, gesturing to his motion, "but you won't have me this way."

"Then how?" he says desperately, the words spilling out before he can stop them. "How can I have you?"

He casts a silent _Legilimens_ but sees nothing from her mind and shrivels in frustration; she shakes her head, stepping forward to take his face between her hands.

"If you want me," she says softly, "you'll have to worship me."

"I do," he says, and cannot believe what he is saying - what he is _doing_ -

"You'll favor me," she asks, pursing her lips in thought. "Above all others?"

"Yes, I will," he gasps. "Anything you want - _anything -_ "

She sways towards him and he takes hold of her again, his fingers skating reverently across her jaw this time; slower, more fearful, as though if she leans away he might break. She _does_ lean away - he curses himself and her and finds that as expected, he nearly shatters - but her eyes widen as she looks at him, her lips swollen from the pressure of his.

"What's your name?" she whispers, and _fuck_ , he wants her - he fucking _wants her -_

"Tom," he says, and the slow smile spreads across her lips.

* * *

On the day she meets him, Narcissa Black knows that she has three loves in her life: the thrill of a pretty thing, the look on a man's face when he is seeing her for the first time, and most importantly, her two sisters.

Later, though, she learns that love can be unlearned.

She learns it first when Andromeda disappoints their parents; when she abandons Narcissa for a _mudblood_ , which is a thing that has not bothered Narcissa very much at all until the sting of her sister's absence. She learns it, too, when her cousin Sirius runs away from home, turning his back on their family, and again when her father approaches her.

"Narcissa, the Dark Lord's attention is waning," he says nervously, for he is a nervous man. "He was disheartened to hear about Andromeda, furious about Sirius - "

"And?" Narcissa lies, feigning ignorance. "What do you wish me to do?"

"Perhaps," Cygnus ventures weakly, "you can think of a way to keep his interests?"

She pauses, considering it. Eventually, she agrees.

She cannot deny that she is curious about him, this Lord Voldemort who has twined her elder sister so skillfully around his finger. She has noticed his craving for control; she notices, for example, that he reads Bella's thoughts, and that this is part of what drives her sister to madness.

Narcissa has noticed, too, that he is only a man, and _those_ she knows how to play with.

On the day she meets him, he does not know that she has already been watching, been observing from afar; she has seen before her father has that Bella's appeal cannot last, and while she loves her sister, she loves finery and splendor too, and thinks that if Bella fades, the privilege, at least, should not. She takes it on as her sacred duty, her responsibility as a daughter of the House of Black - and so she watches him, and she learns him, and more importantly she learns herself.

She learns never to let him in.

"Tom," she whimpers, pushing him away, "Tom, you mustn't - "

He's feverish against her, shaky and hot, and she laments that he is so handsome and so difficult to toy with, as she's a certain degree of burning herself. But she pushes and pushes and pushes until he's arranged the pieces for her - _Lucius will be my right hand,_ he swears to her, _and all his favor will be yours -_ and only then does she permit him a touch.

A taste.

Tom pulls her close and she writhes above him on the bed, rubbing herself shamefully against the hardness she can already feel between his legs, letting his hands draw back the skirt of her wedding gown and inch their way up; slowly first, and then with heated desperation, up the length of her thigh, coming up to smooth over the curve of her arse, his fingers digging into her skin.

He spills kisses from her lips over her jaw and down her neck, his teeth grazing the arch of her throat, and then shifts himself lower; lower until his lips are pulsing against the curve of her breast, lower until he shifts his shoulders underneath her legs, lower until she is sitting upright, his mouth torturously lingering near the throbbing channel of her sex. He threads his tongue between the lips of her cunt and licks her, savoring her at first and then devouring her, the motions against her growing more desperate and agitated as she widens her legs, throwing her head back, panting for more.

She doesn't say please; she doesn't beg. He wants her because _he_ serves _her_ , not the other way around, and she knows this from watching. She reaches down, taking hold of his hair and gripping the roots of it, tugging at it, and whispers obscenely to him as he fucks her with his tongue. "Make me come," she says, toying with him, musing breathlessly as though she has doubts he can do it. "If you love me, you'll make me come," she taunts, "you'll make me come and lick me clean, and I'll taste my own come on your tongue - "

He is wild now, holding her hips in place, licking and sucking at her with a humiliating gusto, and she would laugh but he is _so good, so very good,_ and she is certainly going to come, and she's going to like it, and perhaps this was a mistake, she thinks, as he scrapes his teeth against her clit and then it hits and swarms and waves, crashing overhead, a blissful, long-awaited ecstasy. She shifts away, falling back against the bed she'll share tonight with Lucius, and Tom brings his lips to hers, slick with her salty sweetness.

"Narcissa," he pleads, and she wants to cry out in delirium, knowing with a cruel amount of certainty that he has never begged for _Bellatrix_ like that. "Narcissa, _please -_ "

"You should know," she murmurs, reaching down to slide her palm against the head of his cock, the tip of it slick with the beginnings of his desire, "that my love is a door to a limitless room." She leans down, whispering in his ear, "but beware, Tom, that it still sits on hinges."

"My love," he gasps, "my love belongs to no one but you - no person on earth but you, I swear to you - "

She draws him between her legs - she'd remove the gown but _why,_ really, when this is so much better, so much more _ironic,_ the beginnings of a tragedy shrouded in virginal white - and he slips himself inside her, his eyes falling shut in rapture and then opening again to stare at her, to whisper fealty against her lips.

His eyes are blue, she thinks, like sapphires.

She has always loved pretty things.


	6. Birds

**Birds**

 _Pairing:_ Regulene (Regulus Black x Marlene McKinnon)

 _Universe:_ Hogwarts, Marauder Era

 _Rating:_ T

 _Summary:_ A request originally posted in _Amortentia_ that very much does not belong there. Regulus and Marlene, star-crossed lovers, Hogwarts years.

* * *

The first time I saw her she had her back to me, the light catching on the crown of her head and refracting planes of gold, and I swore she was an angel.

She was also looking at my brother.

A small thing, really, because I knew things that she didn't. My brother never knew what he wanted; he flitted from girl to girl, eternally unsatisfied. But I am the second son, the embodiment of my family's second chance; I learned devotion at my mother's knee and loyalty at my father's hand, and when something calls to me, I give myself to it. She didn't know then that she was mine, but I did, and I was hers. I couldn't begrudge her a glance - especially not for him.

I never resented my brother. You might think his shadow would be a curse, but you'd be wrong; I gloried in his failures and wanted for nothing for his pride. The keys to the kingdom fell to me and I reveled in it, in the chance I would have been denied if he had ever once longed to claim the throne he was born to fill. I never resented him his choices. I felt indebted to him, truth be told. I could have been nothing.

Instead, I got everything.

We could not have been more different, my brother and I. If he was a dog, all boundless energy and tireless rebellion, I was a bird, all sharp angles and patience in flight; alight, aloof - _alone_ , for the most part, not that I minded. My brother could not bear the weight of the Black name and so I did it for him. I endured what he abhorred, because I was always steadfast, unyielding.

Besides - she was a bird, too. Not like I was; we were matched in flight, in grace, but she had a gleam to her, a strike of freedom to her step, and I knew when I saw her that I was looking at something rare. She hovered above the rest, like I did, with a quiet elegance that - to the untrained eye - paled against MacDonald's ebullience and Evans' magnetism; but she had a sharp quickness and a wit to match, and I knew the raucous appeal of my brother's rowdy charisma would not hold her for long. He was insensitive, really; rough around the edges, and he already had his pack. I could tell she would want to be admired, adored; _prized_.

I knew I would do that for her.

It was an unseasonably cold night in November when I first found myself alone with her. She looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time, her eyes traveling over the shape of my shoulders - narrower than my brother's, though I was taller - and I could see her measuring me against him, like I'd seen done so many times before.

"Regulus," she said, testing my name out on her tongue. A more filling name than Sirius, I'd always thought. "What are you doing here?"

"Same as you," I'd said. "Escaping."

It seemed we shared an affinity for heights; birds of a feather.

* * *

I knew the moment I kissed him that I had made a terrible mistake.

I also knew, in the same breath, that I would be doing it again - but I'm not a girl who's free with secrets, and so I kept it to myself.

There was a certain lack of guardedness to him, to the way he looked at me like he would own me and make use of me, _possess_ me somehow, and it throbbed inside me until I gave in. I come from a family of _noise_ , of turbulence and bluster, but there was something so quietly focused about him. Something about the way he watched me move, like I could enchant him with a crook of my finger.

But I think it was me under a spell, in the end, because I was the one who closed the gap between us. The sorting hat told me I was brave, but I only ever felt that way when I looked at him, at the storm in his eyes that should have been familiar - I'd seen the same grey sharpness on Sirius, hadn't I? - but it was strangely foreign, and haunting. He kissed me speechless, kissed me breathless, and by the time I remembered who he was - who _I_ was - it was too late.

He touched my cheek, his fingers curled into his palm, and swept my hair from my shoulders, baring my neck. He had me from a heartbeat, and I was his.

"Marlene," he said, and the name I'd always thought was silly suddenly sounded like a song. "We have to stop meeting like this."

I pressed my lips to his collarbone, burying a smile in his skin.

* * *

I fell in love with her flaws first, her weaknesses. The pink in her cheeks when she lied about where she'd been, her lipstick spilling secrets on my throat. The glance across the room that was both hunger and impatience, selfishness and greed. I looked for flaws and found them, exalted in them, and knew that she was wholly divine.

If I had been a better man, I might have warned her then that I would not wish loving me on anyone. Among other flaws - a wash of imperfections held together by pride and duty - I had a Mark on my wrist that drove my fate, and it stopped her breath when she first saw it. She looked at me with fury and I loved her more for that, for the way she could feel loathing and craving all at once. For how much more complex she was than me, how _vast_ she was, that she could pin my wrist against the wall and wage a war against me even as she let me in.

I was always faithfulness, far before I held her, but she made me passion. I was a Black first, before everything, until I became hers.

And then I was devout.

* * *

I thought for sure I hated him before I realized it was love. They say such pretty things about it in the stories and the poems, but whatever this was, it stung, it festered, and I was sick with it. They don't tell you in a sonnet about the way you open yourself to destruction; there were no pretty words for something so mercilessly consuming, so I yielded, crumbling silently in his grasp.

I knew what he was, even before I saw the Mark; he was loyalty incarnate, resolute in his allegiance, and while Sirius thought him simply a fool I thought him foolishly brave, because I could see that there was nothing to be gained by his defection. If that makes me a traitor, so be it; I've been worse.

If he was poison, I devoured it, I kept him close. He was a beautiful thing, and beautiful things are fragile. _We_ were fragile, little more than stolen secrets within castle walls; the stuff of stories, though not the ones I'd imagined.

Cautionary tales, to warn children of danger.

* * *

"I'm a Black," I told her, my fingers tangled in her golden hair that smelled like roses and parting and heartache. "I'm a Black first, and I was never made for you."

"Like hell you weren't," she whispered, digging her nails into my back, always keen to trap a lie. "Tell me the truth."

"The truth?" I forced a laugh. "What truth?"

She pushed me onto my back, reigning over me. "Any truth," she said, and I thought for a moment to tell her the secret I'd locked in my chest: that if I was meant for anything - if the Fates had taken it upon themselves to scribble instructions on my heart - they would read that I was made to exist in her space, to watch her in flight, to make her immortal.

I didn't say those things. There wouldn't have been a purpose. I'd already made up my mind to do something stupid; the kind of thing my brother might have done, so perhaps we were never that different after all. I could see the end on the horizon, the year coming to a close, the danger that I posed if I stood beside her outside these stone walls. I saw the end and I was just brave enough to let it happen; no more than that, and no less.

If only I'd been that brave those many months ago; if only I'd not felt the need to touch her and discover in a breath how desperately I would want, the agony I would face, forever in her absence.

"The truth is," I murmured, "I've run out of words to tell you the truth."

Perhaps I'd been right, and she was an angel; for how celestially she understood.

* * *

There's a chance I wanted darkness. Maybe I needed it, to know how it felt to burn, so that I could burn for others later on. Maybe I needed him to show me what it felt like to feel loss, so that when the world gapped in his vacancy, I could still take flight, however bruised and battered I remained.

I've embraced the beauty and the misery, the glamor and carnage of the many facets of what we were. Was it precious because it was fleeting? Sometimes I think I couldn't have asked for more, and so I don't. Time leaves room for regrets, but I really only have one: I should have kissed him longer.

But it's alright, I tell myself, and I never suffer long. It's alright -

We'll meet again.


	7. Not With a Bang

**Not With a Bang**

 _Pairing:_ Secret

 _Universe:_ Post-Hogwarts

 _Rating:_ M for language, implied sex

 _Summary:_ Originally submitted to the Wordsmiths  & Betas Rare Pairs One Shot Competition (awarded Overall Honorable Mention, Runner Up Judge's Favorite, Runner Up Fan Favorite), first posted in _Amortentia,_ and now finds a home here.

In sum: Narcissa Malfoy has a terrible secret.

* * *

Narcissa woke in the middle of the night, her eyes fluttering open as she heard the whisper of his voice float through her mind. She woke slowly, deliberately; she fought it, as she always did, knowing that the moment her eyes opened her view of reality would be dim and crushing. In the darkness she could see the glow of Lucius's pale hair, his shoulders shaking in his sleep.

He never would recover. Neither would she.

She ought to hold him, she knew. She wanted to, but he was a stranger in her arms. Had been for a long time.

Too long.

With Draco missing nearly a year, she had been wretchedly emptied, hollowed out with sorrow and left aching in her grief. The Dark Lord's presence was pervasive, his twisted influence a lingering shadow in what scattered shards remained of her life.

And then there was _him_.

She heard her name on his lips, a fleeting whisper in a darkened room. He shouldn't say it, should never have said it. And she - she shouldn't hear it. There were so many elements of _wrong_ that she spent most of her time desperately fighting it; whatever pleasure she managed to take from him, it was scattered and frantic, scarcely enough to outweigh the guilt.

But in the intimate moments, in the pressure of his fingers on her back, the brush of his lips on her throat - she was powerless and whole. Desolate and fulfilled.

It was _wrong_. All wrong.

She wasn't sure she could identify how it started; truth be told, she hadn't even realized how far she'd gone until she heard herself say his name, a desperate cry that ripped itself from her lips, and afterwards she had gasped, hearing it, her nails embedded in his shoulder, the look of rapturous hunger in his eye that hadn't yet extinguished. It never would, perhaps. He always wanted more, he always demanded _more_ , and yet he must have known.

Surely he had known she never had anything to give.

A symptom of his youth, she was sure. He was a well that could never be filled, and so was she, in a manner of speaking. Never enough.

Never enough.

But the slip of his tongue along her spine, the scrape of his teeth against her inner thigh; she was somehow even less without it. Despite her better judgment she knew she would amount to less than nothing without him, and she was powerless in his arms.

He held her like the world was ending, and perhaps it was. She wondered how he had even seen her, how he had managed to catch a glimpse of her at all when she was so sure she had already disappeared, her presence shrinking to nothing in the heavy weight of her loss. The loss of her husband, the shell of him cold in her bed; the loss of her son, his absence an abrasion embedded in the depths of her soul. She was sure she had gone. She was sure she was nothing.

And yet _he_ saw her.

She had always been vain, always been proud. Always been beautiful. Perhaps she shouldn't have been surprised when it happened; perhaps he'd been looking long before she actually caught the glimmer of craving in his eye.

First it was her name on his lips; her first hint should have been the shiver that ran through her, the dull roar that pulsed to a scream in her mind at hearing him say it. It felt like a secret even when it was nothing, even when it was less than nothing; just her name on his lips.

And then it was the brush of his hand up her spine when nobody was looking. She'd had to close her eyes at the agony of it. The devastation of knowing it was _wrong_ , all wrong, and yet please - please.

Again.

 _Again._

When had he known he had her? Perhaps she'd never want to know, never want to admit herself so weak as to allow herself comfort in his grasp.

 _Stop._

She'd felt him smile at that.

 _Never._

 _Please,_ she begged, as he brought his hands to her waist. _Stop._

He relaxed his hold and she nearly wept against him.

His breath against her ear, laughing.

 _Never._

She realized she had left the bed, left her chambers, left the interior of the home she'd spent years building and only moments destroying; she was wandering in her gardens, her feet bare, her hair loose. This is what it had come to.

It was dark outside, and dewy. The smell of gardenias and summer in the air and yet she could only think of him, of the elegance of his fingers, the quickness of his wit, whenever she permitted him his stolen moments; it was rare, certainly, but she was weak. Her life had made her weak. Her love had made her damaged, and he had sprung up in the cracks, finding a twisted home in her contemptible vulnerability.

 _This cannot last_ , she told him, and he pressed her roughly against the wall.

 _Fine_ , he muttered, ripping her bodice and lowering his head to her breasts.

 _This has to stop,_ she insisted, and he ground against her, lifting her leg over his hip.

 _Fine_ , he agreed, slipping inside her. _Say my name._

No.

 _Say it._

And it always came out in a gasp, revealed itself in a whimper.

 _Again_.

No.

 _Say it again._

No, no, no.

But she always did. And she clung to him, selfishly.

 _Don't stop._

 _I won't._

 _Don't -_

 _Never,_ he promised her, and the pain was exquisite.

She sank to the ground, fighting it. Fighting the want, the need. It was _wrong_ , all wrong; it was all she had and that alone was proof she had nothing.

Less than nothing.

 _This has to stop._

 _Fine_ , he said, his arms tight around her as she sobbed against his chest. Proof she had nothing.

And now she was here. Another sleepless night, like always. The smell of gardenias and summer and yet all she could think of was him.

The sun would be up soon, she thought, closing her eyes.

"You should be sleeping."

He always knew where to find her. He was observant that way, and relentless.

A symptom of youth.

"Don't," she warned, her eyes still closed.

He knelt behind her, his chest pressed against her back. She would have sighed in satisfaction if the thought of him didn't catch in her throat and choke her.

"Lie to me," she whispered.

"This doesn't mean anything," he murmured back, his lips against her ear.

She sighed, letting it happen.

 _Again._

"Say my name," he told her, tangling his fingers in her hair and yanking her head back, running his fingers delicately from the curve of her lips to the pulsing hollow of her chest.

 _Wrong, all wrong._

"Theo," she said, and he sank his teeth into her neck.

* * *

 **a/n:** _For a follow up to this story/pairing, read on . . ._


	8. The Way the World Ends

**The Way the World Ends**

 _Pairing:_ Theocissa (Theo Nott x Narcissa Malfoy)

 _Universe:_ Post-Hogwarts

 _Rating:_ M for language, sex

 _Summary:_ It can only end badly. A follow up to **_Not With a Bang_** , originally written as a showcase piece in response to the Quills and Parchment Under the Mistletoe prompt:

 _"Theo," Narcissa said, startled. "What are you doing here?"  
"Waiting up for Santa," he replied, smirking. "Funny seeing you here."_

* * *

Narcissa took the stairs slowly, contemplatively; trying to draw meaning from each step, as though she might someday manage to sleep if she could only arrive at _something_. If she could only set her foot upon a landing of closure, she thought, she might ease the breath back to her lungs; she might return the root of meaning to her chest.

But even as she thought it, she knew it wasn't true.

The thud of her heart was raucous and loud, an unforgiving reminder that she was still in _motion_ \- still expected to _live_ and _be_ and _function_ despite the vacancy in her soul. Draco had been missing for months now; Lucius nearly twice as long, despite his haunted presence in her bed. The Lucius of her memory - the husband she felt she'd buried in her past - wasn't the same one beneath her fingers; the chasm between them had yawned and stretched and gaped until they scarcely recognized each other, and when his hollow grey eyes settled on hers, she only felt a stretch of tension in her spine, a longing of _remember when? - remember me? -_

But _nothing_.

She stepped through the doors of the ballroom, the enchanted sky twinkling jubilantly above her; a twisted incongruity. She eyed the corner of the room, where she might have put a tree if it had been a year ago. Would she have been preparing for a party if things had been different? Would she have worried about her hair, fussed over her gardens; would she have shouted frantic instruction at her elves, felt the swish of her gown across the floor; would she have ended the night with her husband?

How much, then, had changed?

"Strange this way, isn't it?"

The voice was smooth and cool - _intrusive_ \- and Narcissa whipped around, startled, bringing a hand to her chest.

"Theo," she gasped, fighting to slow her pulse. "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting up for Santa," he replied, a touch of a smirk flitting across his lips. "Funny, isn't it," he commented, "running into you here."

 _It's only Theo,_ she told herself, searching for relief. _Just Theo -_

Only she still hadn't caught her breath.

"The Dark Lord," she ventured, channeling the iron in her will. "Has he called? Is that why you're here?"

He paused, tilting his head to consider her, before taking a step.

"Narcissa," he murmured, his green eyes scanning her face. "Isn't your life dark enough without him occupying your every thought?"

She bit moisture to her lips, kept her eyes away from his. _Not my every thought._

"Are you okay?" she asked briskly, ignoring his implications. "Is everything - "

She paused as he moved again, long strides gradually closing the distance between them. He caught up to her quickly; unsurprising, as she hadn't moved, and she swallowed a haunted breath.

" - alright?"

"I've already told you, haven't I," he said quietly, bending his head to look at her. "You don't have to worry about me."

"Of course I do," she choked out, her breath turning violent. "You - you're - "

He reached out like he would brush a finger over her lips but paused his hand in the air, like he would catch her meaning in his palm; like he would caress it, covet it, and claim it for his own. She, reduced to silence, eyed his steady hand and marveled - _how,_ she thought, _how can he hold still when I'm -_

"I'm what?" he prompted, an unsettling glimmer of something savage, something hungry in his eye; there was a flicker of greed there, an unbending oath, and it was a hunter's calculated promise of _I see you,_

 _And I want you -_

 _And you're mine._

She shut her eyes, fighting it; how effortlessly she was made prey.

"Stop," she whispered. "You know that I - " She broke off. "You know that _we_ \- "

Even with her eyes closed, she felt him smile.

"Narcissa," he said, his hands finding their way to her waist, his steady hands atop her shaking pulse; his touch was both a lick of comfort and a breath of tragedy, a concert of devastation and wrongs and _this can only end badly -_

"Stop," she said again, more forcefully this time, "stop all of this. Stop looking at me."

"Stop looking at you?" he echoed, his laugh a breath in her ear, and she felt a curl of fury at that.

"You know what I mean," she snapped, opening her eyes. He met her gaze unabashedly, unrelentingly, and with the foolish disregard for danger that only he possessed. _Don't you see,_ she wanted to rage, boiling over; _don't you see the signs we're meant to run?_

"Stop looking at me," she said again, "stop _touching_ me - "

"I haven't touched you yet," he interrupted. "Believe me, I'm aware."

"You're touching me now," she warned, watching his fingers spread possessively over her hips.

"Not yet," he said again. "Not like I'd like to." He leaned forward, his breath skating across the line of her neck.

"Not like I plan to," he whispered, and she cursed her knees as they buckled.

He caught her, a strong arm around her waist, and she, helpless, braced herself against his chest. Her hands were curled into fists - _violently_ , like she would fight her way out; but _stupidly,_ because she would never try. He was the only thing holding her together and so she let her head fall against his shoulder, half a defeated sob ripping its way from her throat as he lowered his lips to the line of her neck, brushing them against her skin.

"Narcissa," he sighed into her hair, the warmth of it tingling against her ear, trouble and temptation. "Tell me you want this." He reached back, tangling his fingers in her long blonde hair, pulling her head back to look at her. "Tell me you want _me_ ," he said, his eyes traveling, spellbound, to the curve of her lips.

 _Want,_ she thought in wonder, in breathless captivity. How long had it been since such a thing had coiled itself inside her; and then _worse,_ how long had it been _clawing its way out_ -

"Please," she begged; half to him, half to herself. "Please, _stop_ \- "

"Stop," he repeated, and there was a hint of mirth to the concept, to the way he toyed with the word. "You want me to stop?"

"You have to," she said, "you _must -_ "

"And you," he countered, looking down at her, a desperate misery etching itself into the bright, roguish lines of his face, "you'd put that responsibility on me?"

She realized she had spread her fingers against his chest, had claimed him, had fitted herself against him; had leaned into the curve of him -

"Even you're not so cruel, Narcissa," he admonished, and relaxed his hold, putting a cool breath of distance between them.

"Wait," she gritted out desperately, the word yanked from her lips and forced through her teeth, and he laughed again; softer this time, a hint of intimacy to it, a penitent confession. Like he was _sorry,_ she thought, and perhaps he was; and perhaps it was _I know that it's wrong_ -

 _But still, let me live with my sins -_

"I'm done waiting," he growled.

He pressed her back against the wall, slamming her against it; if she'd hoped the impact might shake some sense of reason back into her brain she was hopelessly wrong, contemptuously wrong, pointlessly, impossibly _wrong -_

She'd be lying if she hadn't thought about it, about the way his lips would feel on hers; she'd be a liar a thousand times over if she didn't confess that she had _wondered_ -

If she didn't confess that she had felt the heat of his gaze; that it had warmed her to her core and lit, and sparked, and _flamed_ -

He was a _man_ , after all, the once-coltish thing before her whose angled jaw had sharpened, whose careless stubble scraped against her cheek; he was unrecognizable, and as he tore her breath from her parted lips she let him take it, conscious of the way his touch burned against her skin.

His kiss was molten; a frenzied heat that was cooled by the way he took his time, a smooth calculation of motions. His thumb slid across her throat, the pressure of his touch like he could slice the life from her but _wouldn't_ , would _never_ \- and his lips were reverent, exultant, his movements subtle and controlled.

He pinned her shoulders back and pulled away, his eyes raking over her; she'd felt so many waves of fear but _this_ , the possibility of his absence - _another vacancy,_ she thought, and then, desperately, _don't go_ \- was an icy douse of it, at the thought that maybe he had changed his mind, maybe she wasn't as he had imagined, _maybe she hadn't_ -

"Turn around," he rasped, and like she'd been Imperiused, she did, placing her hands against the coldness of the wall as he stepped towards her again. He moved her hair to the side, sliding it away from her back - she closed her eyes, the movement prompting a shiver - and bent to press his lips to the top of her spine.

She felt the zipper come undone, slowly, rapturously, the airy coolness of his touch replacing where fabric had been until the garment draped against her waist; he slid his thumbs along her shoulders, luring the sleeves down the length of her arms, and with a final shudder the gown pooled at her feet.

He put his hands on her waist and bore down for a moment against her - he brought his lips to her shoulder and then, thinking better of it, sank his teeth in, prompting a gasp - and then turned her to face him, capturing her faint _ahh_ of surprise between his lips.

"I," she whispered, her hands finding their way to the buttons of his shirt, "I want - "

She couldn't bring herself to say the words; but still, he seemed to understand, tearing his shirt open and pressing himself against her.

"You want to feel me," he said, and she bit back a moan as he brought her hands to his chest, sliding her palms down the channels of his abs, the impossibly sleek lines of him. "So _do it_ \- "

"I'm yours," he breathed in her ear, and then, in a stunning contradiction, he roughly forced her knees apart, bringing his hand to her cunt and burying two fingers inside her.

She gasped, her nails digging into his sides as he slid his fingers in and out, lowering his head to her breasts; he licked her nipple through the delicate lace of her bra and then lightly grazed his teeth against it, lowering himself until he was on his knees, his fingers still inside her as he kissed his way down her abdomen.

He shifted, fitting himself against her and she lifted one leg, tossing it carelessly over his shoulder as he brought his mouth to her clit, shifting the thin fabric aside to devour her, the flicks of his tongue growing deeper, more intense, more brutally hungry until he'd torn the garment away from her. He angled her hips, burying his tongue inside her and she, enraptured, let her head slam carelessly against the wall, gripping his hair as the throbbing whorl inside her built and tightened and crashed and _oh, god_ -

She bit her lip, tasting blood as her legs shook, coming undone around him. He stood, fumbling for his trousers and she, too far gone to be humiliated by her need, hastily moved to help him, knocking his wrists aside as she slipped a trembling hand inside the band of his clothing, feeling the smoothness of him against her palm. He choked out a gasp then, and she, despite everything - despite the signs that she _should have run_ \- let the corners of her lips twist up in a smile.

"Don't toy with me," he begged hoarsely, and she pulled him roughly against her.

"You want to feel me," she whispered, "so _do it -_ "

He threw an arm around her waist and lifted her, his fingers digging into her arse as she wrapped her legs around his hips; he clapped a hand over her mouth as he filled her, capturing her moan of satisfaction between his fingers as he thrusted into her -

"Narcissa," he rasped, replacing his hand with his lips and _god,_ she was already close, _fuck -_

"Say my name," he breathed, so quietly that she might not have heard him had something not screeched its opposition inside her head.

 _No,_ she thought frantically, _no -_

 _Don't you see the signs we're meant to run?_

"Say it," he demanded, his motions faster now, the ache inside her mounting. "Say it."

 _No, no, no -_

But _fuck_ if he wasn't perfection - _fuck_ if he wasn't everything she desperately craved, smooth and carved and firm beneath her shaking hands -

"Narcissa," he sighed again; a plea this time. He was close, she could tell, he was _lost_ -

 _Say it -_

"Theo," she gasped, the name clawing free from her throat and burying itself in his mouth, a sigh and a struggle all at once. He threw back his head, pain and pleasure intertwining in a breath.

"Say it again," he panted, "say it again - "

And it always came out in a gasp, revealed itself in a whimper.

"Theo - "

He picked up speed, raising her arms over her head and pinning her wrists to the wall.

" _Again_ \- "

"Theo, oh god, _Theo -_ "

He pressed his lips to hers, slamming into her a final time as they both unraveled, the torment of what might have been screams in another world - in another _life_ , with fewer signs of danger - convulsing between them, breathless exultation that melted instantly to _this can only end badly, this can only end in pain -_

 _This can only end_ and _wrong, wrong, wrong_ and _sin or not, this has to -_

"Stop," she lied, and his arms tightened protectively around her.

"Never," he promised, and she sighed her abhorrent relief, her wretched contentment.

He held her like the world was ending, she realized - and in a breath, she wondered if perhaps it was.

"Happy Christmas," she murmured, feeling foolish and empty and _wrong_.

She felt him smile. "Happy Christmas" - he twisted around, his lips against her ear -

" _Narcissa_ ," he whispered, as he grazed his teeth against her neck.

* * *

 **a/n:** _Tomorrow, the day of my birth (in this time zone): Dramione._


	9. Res Publica

**Res Publica**

 _Pairing:_ Dramione (Draco x Hermione)

 _Universe:_ Post-War AU

 _Rating:_ M for language, sex

 _Summary:_ She's ahead in the polls, and he's going to lose. But what she does behind closed doors is her business.

* * *

 **Res Publica:** _public affair._

* * *

" _Mr Malfoy, there are some critics of your campaign who say that electing a pureblood Minister for Magic would be little more than business as usual. What would you say to them?"_

" _Well, that's simple enough - to them I say that shouldn't discussing blood at all be considered business as usual? If we were really advancing with the times, then neither my blood nor my opponent's would be relevant to the conversation at all."_

"Fuck," Hermione muttered, opening her eyes to the sound of his voice on the news. "Fucking good answer."

" _I suppose I've never thought about it that way,"_ the reporter responded thoughtfully.

" _Yes, well, that's half the problem, isn't it? We say we've advanced past clinging to our archaic stereotypes, and yet they're obviously still relevant. Yes, I may have received undue privileges in the past due to my name and my birth" -_ "you think?" Hermione said aloud, rolling her eyes - " _but now those same factors have lessened me considerably; and is that really what the war was about? To tear others down, rather than simply all rise?"_

"Fucker," Hermione growled, and Ron shifted beside her, mumbling incoherently as he nudged himself closer to her, stealing her body heat in the midst of an unseasonably cool September morning.

She sat up in bed, reaching over Ron for her wand and summoning a cigarette, lighting it in nearly the same motion. She let the flame catch, watched it flicker and burn for a moment, and then took a long drag, leaning back against the headboard of the exceptionally luxurious hotel bed.

" _What do I think of my opponent? Well, she's certainly something, isn't she? I'd be the first to praise her. But do I think she's as prepared for politics in the Ministry as I am? Respectfully," -_ "ha," Hermione huffed irritably, inadvertently releasing a clustered puff of smoke - " _no, I don't. My political experience is what's driving my campaign. Ms Granger, by contrast, has been cloistered in academia for most of her adult life, and while I will certainly admit she's brilliant, I'm not sure she has the requisite ability to function outside of what I regret to say is her unrealistic idealism when it comes to social policies like - "_

"What a cunt," Hermione scoffed, flicking her wand to silence the sound of Draco Malfoy's voice, calming herself with a long drag from her charmed cigarette.

On her right, Ron stirred. "Something wrong?" he mumbled sleepily, rolling over to press his lips to her shoulder.

She hummed thoughtfully, pursing her lips as she considered it. _Yes,_ she thought, _and no -_

"You know what I want for my birthday?" she mused tangentially, letting the smoke escape from her lips with a slow hiss and dainty, exceptionally ladylike cough.

"Wha's that?" Ron muttered, rubbing at his eyes.

Hermione smiled slowly, turning to her left to lean over Harry's bare torso, putting the cigarette out on the small porcelain tray that sat on the hotel nightstand. "I want to beat Malfoy by at least a thousand points in the polls," she said slowly, and Ron mumbled something - _yes, yes, we know -_

"And then," Hermione added indifferently, stabbing the cigarette a final time against the ashtray and slipping down to lay between the two men, "I want to fuck him."

Harry, who was always a more effective riser than Ron, chuckled, pulling her closer.

"Election's not for months," he reminded her, slipping his hand over her hip and murmuring appreciatively into the hollow of her throat. "But the other thing - "

"Mm," she hummed in vacant agreement, but as Harry began kissing her neck and Ron, finally managing consciousness, slid a hand over her breast from behind, she found she couldn't get Malfoy out of her head - his insufferably good answers, or his complete and utter arrogance that he passed off as some kind of skill. _The consummate Slytherin,_ she thought, wondering furiously how anyone was buying his act.

It was enough to drive her half to madness, she thought, shoving Harry's hand away from her clit and letting out an exasperated sigh.

She threw the covers off, scooting to the edge of the bed and feeling around for the dress she'd worn to the fundraising gala the night before, reaching for her wand again to smooth out the wrinkles and then transfiguring it, making it new.

"Carry on without me," she called behind her before glancing over her shoulder to the two men that remained, Ron's hand already drifting up Harry's thigh. "Just don't get too loud," she warned, pointing a finger at them.

Harry smirked. "No promises," he offered, and Hermione sighed.

"Happy Tuesday," she muttered, setting off in desperate search of coffee, shoving Malfoy's pale blond head out of her thoughts - _until,_ she thought, smiling a little, _she could have it between her thighs where it belonged._

* * *

" _Hermione Granger, the wife of Harry Potter, the youngest Auror department head in history and the oft-heralded Chosen One whose victory against Lord Voldemort twelve years ago helped change the landscape of wizarding society - "_

"For fuck's sake, they're not even talking about _her,_ " Draco muttered, the coffee mug slamming against the table with a loud, threatening clatter. "Fucking _Potter_ is not part of this election - "

"Oh, hush," Astoria said, shaking her head at him and arching a dark brow. "Do you really think _her_ interview is going to be much better?" she added, pointing as Granger's face came onto the screen.

" _I have nothing but the utmost respect for Draco Malfoy, certainly - though I can't help but question his motivations. Politics for the sake of politics is a dangerous thing, after all; it's only a step away from tyranny, and even at that distance, it's hardly beneficial for progressive change."_

"Oh, _that's_ rich," Draco scoffed, staring at her on the screen. "She's calling me a tyrant!"

"She's not," Daphne said, entering behind them and kissing the top of Draco's head, her breasts brushing the back of his shoulders. "She's just making a point, and a salient one at that. And good morning, by the way," she added seeking out coffee. "How was Theo?"

"You want a full report?" Draco asked drily, leaning back in his chair to look at her. "He takes a cock like a champ and he calls me daddy when he comes."

"No I do not," Theo muttered, wandering into the kitchen behind them and kissing his wife's shoulder. "I only call _you_ daddy," he murmured to Daphne, smirking at her, and she laughed, turning to brush a kiss against his lips before shifting to take a seat beside Draco.

"I wouldn't blame you if you did," she said to Theo, giving Draco's knee an affectionate pat. "You want me tonight?" she asked him, sliding her palm up his thigh and letting her slender fingers linger on the crease of his trousers.

He shrugged, taking a listless sip of his Earl Grey. "I'm not sure," he said, his eyes straying to Granger's again on the screen; she was wearing a set of crimson robes over what appeared a dark Muggle suit, and part of him ached to rip the slit of her fitted pencil skirt. "I might want to be alone tonight."

Daphne pursed her lips, eyeing him closely; she was a better fuck when he was in a better mood, he thought, and figured she would understand. "Mm," she vacantly agreed, as Theo came up behind her again, kissing her neck.

" _I find it odd that someone with Mr Malfoy's experience can shy away from programs which benefit a larger population of wizardkind. Perhaps he was lucky enough not to have his vaults stripped after the war," -_ "Subtle," Draco muttered, shaking his head - " _but many others were penalized for their associations; his wife Astoria, for example, was nearly destitute prior to their marriage, and without the aid of the programs established for - "_

"She didn't have to bring that up," Astoria remarked, making a face as she picked at a chocolate croissant. "So distasteful."

"Speaking of distasteful," Draco said, glancing at her. "You're still keeping to the rules, aren't you?"

"Yes," Astoria sighed, sulking petulantly. "It's not like ' _no Gryffindors'_ is such a hard rule to follow, Draco - "

"And yet it _is_ , isn't it?" he said pointedly, lifting one brow. "You do realize how much it cost me to pay off Rita over your stint with McLaggen, don't you?"

"As if you'd let me forget," she muttered, shaking her head and sighing. "It was worth it," she assured him, smirking wickedly, and he grimaced.

"It better have been," he muttered, returning his attention to Granger. "Fucking hell," he commented, watching her tightly grip Potter's arm and smile insincerely at the reporter. "She looks like she hasn't been fucked in months."

"Oh, I doubt that's true," a thin, dreamy voice said behind them, and Draco turned, catching sight of Luna Lovegood in his wife's purple satin robe. "Last I heard she was getting spectacularly fucked, actually."

"What the fuck is this?" Draco demanded, pointing to her and staring accusingly at the other three. "Whose is this?"

"Mine," Astoria said with a grin, rising to her feet and grabbing Lovegood's hand to pull her to the kitchen table. "I'm almost done," she said, offering Lovegood a bit of her pastry, "and then we can go back upstairs and - "

"Hold on," Draco interrupted sharply. "Do you fucking know who this is?"

"What?" Astoria said innocently, pouting. "She's not a Gryffindor."

Draco gritted his teeth, fuming. "She's - " he cut off, swearing. "She's fucking _worse than a Gryffindor,_ Astoria - she's fucking _friends_ with Potter and Granger - "

"Actually, Hermione detests me," Lovegood commented dazedly, glancing up at Granger on the screen. "I think I'm a bit too whimsical for her taste."

"You certainly are," Draco muttered, and then rose to his feet, exhausted by the circus. "I'm going out," he said, fixing his cuffs and heading for the door. "Would you all behave yourselves, please? Fucking _try,_ " he added emphatically, "not to get into any trouble? I only have so much money," he grumbled, reaching out for a coat.

"Wear the navy robes," Daphne called out to him, reaching over for her sister's pastry as Astoria settled herself in Lovegood's lap. "Black is too harsh on you, Draco. It photographs badly."

"Thanks," Draco sighed, switching robes, and Theo stood, taking a few catlike strides to join him at the door.

"Hey," Theo murmured comfortingly, lowering his hand to the jut of Draco's hip. "You okay?"

Draco let out an audible sigh, shaking his head. "Fine," he exhaled unconvincingly. "Just - "

His eyes traveled one last time to Granger on the screen as he curled a fist, feeling his expression tighten to a grimace.

"Nothing," Draco said, and Theo leaned forward, brushing a hand over his cock with the muted, fervent intention that was so appealingly Theo's.

"You want me tonight, don't you?" Theo asked knowingly, curling his thumb over the outline of Draco's tip. "Daphne will understand," he added. "She knows I handle your" - he paused, feeling Draco's cock nudge against his hand - "frustrations better."

Draco sighed again, sliding Theo's hand away and gritting his teeth as Granger's voice continued. "I really think I want to be alone," he murmured, and stepped solemnly through the front door.

* * *

Hermione was sitting in her office, poring over the day's paperwork and muttering to herself when she finally decided to take a break, leaning back in her chair. She closed her eyes, thinking of the morning's Daily Prophet headlines - _UNDERDOG MALFOY SURGES IN POLLS -_ and slipped her hand under the band of her skirt, running her fingers over her clit.

"Fucking Malfoy," she said to nobody in particular, parting her legs wider and growling in frustration, letting her mind wander. She thought of his pale blond hair, his arrogant smirk, the utter implausibility of his political appeal, the way he artfully employed a careful regimen of manipulation and lies, and -

"Fuck," she breathed, feeling herself throb and increasing the pace of her hand. _Fuck,_ Draco Malfoy had gotten attractive; he'd gotten powerful and subtle, clever and cunning, and _god_ was it going to be excruciatingly sweet when he'd have to inevitably issue a fucking _mournful, heartfelt_ press release acknowledging her win - or _fuck,_ imagine the look on his face when he would have to give a concession speech, acknowledging her as the new Minister for Magic with his pale head bent, finally put in his _fucking place_ -

She was moving furiously now, using her left hand to unbutton her plain white oxford and pulling at her hardened nipple, imagining Malfoy's mouth on her breast, whispering his defeat as he fucked her - she shifted in her seat, propping one heel up against her desk to get a better angle, letting her head fall back - _fucking Malfoy, that conceited little prick -_

"Hermione," Harry said, bursting into her office and prompting her to mewl aggressively in frustration, suddenly wishing to curse him where he stood. "Oh, sorry," he said, eyeing her hand and shrugging apologetically. "Didn't mean to - "

"I was about to come, too," she muttered shortly, sitting up and glaring at him. "You owe me one."

"I'll give you two," he assured her, winking, before settling himself across from her. "But about your birthday gift - "

" _Now_ , Harry?" she sighed, waving a hand dismissively. "I'm otherwise occupied, if you couldn't tell."

"I think you'll like it," he said neutrally, removing a manila envelope from under his arm and sliding it to her across the table. "Open it," he suggested, and she frowned, picking it up.

"What is this?" she asked, and he shrugged.

"Just do it," he said, "and never say I don't come through."

"I wouldn't," she agreed, sliding a set of three photos from the envelope. "What is th- _oh_ ," she said, recognizing the naked woman in the photographs to be Astoria Malfoy. "Oh _my_ \- "

"It seems," Harry noted gleefully, "that the Malfoy marriage isn't quite what it appears to be."

"Certainly isn't," Hermione agreed, eyeing the photos. "Is this Cormac McLaggen?" she asked, tilting her head to squint at the image. "My goodness, he is - "

"Well endowed," Harry agreed, glancing at the photo and nodding. "I indulged in a fairly close look myself."

"Spare me the details," Hermione remarked drily, giving him a wary once-over, and he laughed.

"Anyway, Malfoy apparently paid Rita Skeeter an enormous sum to have these buried," he said. "But given the way it happened, she's pretty convinced this is a regular occurrence. She said he didn't seem surprised in the slightest."

"He's a very good Occlumens," Hermione permitted thoughtfully, eyeing the position in which Astoria had straddled Cormac and marveling at the other woman's flexibility, "but I assume you're right."

"I've also done you the favor of arranging a meet and greet at the same charming little inn in which he is having a fundraiser tomorrow evening," Harry added, grinning mischievously at her. "And nobody will fault me, of course, as the Three Broomsticks is the only place to stay in Hogsmeade," he added. " _Shame_ you'll both have to stay the night."

Hermione felt a helpless smile pull at her lips, mirth stretching broadly across her face. "You'll get him alone for me?" she asked, and Harry nodded, rising from his seat to wander behind the desk and turn her chair, settling to his knees in front of her.

"It's your birthday, my lovely conniving wife," he said, spreading her legs apart. "I want nothing more than for you to get the fucking you've always dreamed of."

"Mm, you spoil me," she sighed, sinking in the chair as Harry pushed her skirt up her legs, brushing his lips against the slickness that had already pooled between her thighs. "And to think I only married you for your name - "

"Foolish of you," he said against her clit, and she threw her leg over his shoulder, sitting back and smiling in anticipation for the tomorrow's impending victory.

* * *

"What do you mean Granger's camp is staying _here_?" Draco demanded furiously, growling at Theo. "But that means I'll have to - "

"Behave yourself? I know," Theo said tartly, shrugging. "But it's only one night."

"Says you," Draco retorted, tugging furiously at his tie. " _You're_ not the one who's had to beg for money all evening from these godforsaken cunt-witted fools - "

"No," Theo agreed. "But I'm sure you'll manage," he said, grinning. "Or I could send your wife in, if you really need to - "

" _Fuck_ no," Draco said, making a face. "Too many people have been there, Theo, it's hardly even safe for consumption."

"Fair enough," Theo ruled, pausing as they reached Draco's room. "Regroup in the morning, then?"

"Yeah," Draco muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "Have Daphne owl my schedule, would you? And tell her I need Pansy to get on the - "

"She's got it," Theo assured him, clapping him on the back. "Have a good night," he said, careful not to linger before heading down the hallway, his hands slipping into his pockets as he turned the corner out of sight.

Draco opened the door of his room and threw his tie to the side with a growl, rolling the kink out of his shoulder and contemplating summoning a bottle of Firewhisky when a soft cough from his left drew his attention, prompting him to nearly drop his wand.

"For fuck's sake," he said, bringing a hand to his chest and panting from alarm. "Granger, what the fu- " he cut himself off, remembering who she was as she slowly rose to her feet from the edge of his bed, smiling at him.

"Are you lost, Ms Granger?" he asked, trying not to stare as he watched the material of her skirt cling snugly to the appealing shape of her hips.

"Malfoy," she said neutrally, flicking her wand to lock the door. "I wondered if we might have a conversation. Candidate to candidate," she added, raising a glass of something - whiskey, he guessed - to her lips as she stepped in, closing the distance between them. "If you're open to it."

He swallowed, fighting not to stare at the ever so slightly intriguing gaping of her shirt and the line of her neck, left visible by the loose chignon of her hair. "What did you have in mind?" he asked, his mouth suddenly going dry.

"Well, I've learned something very interesting," she said carefully, teasing her lip against the edge of her glass in a way that nearly drove him to madness. "You may be paying off Rita Skeeter," she added knowingly, and his heart pounded in his chest - _fucking Astoria,_ he thought furiously - "but I've always had a certain way with influencing her," Granger finished, stepping away to set her glass down on the dresser and then slipping her blazer from her shoulders, leaving her in a crisp white oxford.

"What is this?" Draco asked, watching her distrustfully. "Are you - " he glanced around, expecting someone to pop out unexpectedly. "Is this - "

"This, Malfoy, is me offering you the chance to fuck me," she said, perching daintily on the edge of his bed. "Without consequences or strings."

"What?" he choked out in disbelief, coughing as an inexpert swallow lodged itself in his throat. "You - you're - "

"Listen, I won't tell anyone about the pictures that I have," she said, carefully laying out the situation, "and that Harry has extra copies of, by the way - and _you_ ," she continued, tilting her head to look at him, "won't tell anyone about this." She leaned back, letting her breasts push up against the parting of her shirt. "Are we clear?"

"That" - he passed his tongue over his dry lips, imagining the thought of her on her knees - _please, Malfoy, please_ coming from that swotty little mouth - and fighting the need to immediately indulge it - "is an interesting proposition, Granger." He paused, leaning against the dresser. "This," he added, gesturing to her, "this is what you wear to a seduction?"

"This is what I wear to a _negotiation_ ," she corrected him, unfazed. "And yes, as it's clearly working," she added, gesturing to the outline of his hardened cock that had begun to press against his trousers. "In general, I'd say I know what I'm doing."

"You certainly do," he said, grimacing in displeasure at her having the upper hand. "After all, you're the one who's brought the word 'tyrant' into the discussion - "

"Only after you undercut the very thing I have going for me," she snapped, glaring at him. "As if you're not privileged enough _as it is_ without having the audacity to claim that your privilege shouldn't be a factor."

He paused, licking his lips; the sparring was more enjoyable than even he could have anticipated.

"You know, I have to say," he commented carefully, "I'd thought your marriage to the almighty do-gooder Potter would prevent you from pursuing such" - he paused, quirking a brow - "dastardly pursuits."

"You'd think," Granger agreed, appearing to feign a disinterested yawn. "But you'd be wrong."

"Your son is a very effective tool in your campaign," Draco added, eyeing her. "I'd have done something similar, I think, only Astoria's not quite so willing to serve me up an heir. James Ignotus Potter, hm?" he added. "Clever of you to use an old wizarding name in addition to a renowned war hero - "

" _I'm_ a renowned war hero, in case that escaped your attention," she sniffed. "And anyway," she added wickedly, sitting upright. "There's no need to be so inelegantly jealous, Malfoy," she murmured, "as that's not my son."

Draco stared at her, gawking in disbelief. "What?" he asked vacantly.

"James isn't my son," Granger said, shrugging. "But as you said," she added carefully, "he does make a nice addition to a cover spread, doesn't he? And the wizarding world is so horribly backwards," she added, making a face. "They'd prefer to see a woman with a baby, don't you think?"

"He's not your - " Draco trailed off, rendered speechless by the information. "Whose fucking kid _is_ he, then?"

Granger shrugged a second time, her lips curling up in a charming, tempting smile. "You'll have to take that up with Harry and Ron," she suggested ambiguously, and Draco shook his head, stunned.

"Fucking hell," he muttered. "What kind of operation are you running here, Granger?"

"You tell me," she countered bluntly, unyielding. "I assume you and Astoria have some kind of understanding?"

He hesitated, but as she carefully uncrossed her legs, making a show of unlinking right over left to then shift left over right, he found himself watching a little too closely, understanding that her terms required tit for tat.

"Astoria does what she wants," Draco said simply, picking up Granger's glass and tossing back the remainder of the whiskey. "And I," he added pointedly, toasting her with his glass, "do what _I_ want."

"Which is?" she prompted, her ankle bouncing delicately as she watched him.

"Daphne sometimes," he said, shrugging. "Theo at others."

"Interesting," Granger murmured. "You're all so good at sharing." She smirked a little, biting coquettishly at her lip. "It's so _evolved,"_ she teased.

"So is the Golden Trio, apparently," Draco remarked wryly, shaking his head. "I knew the marriage to Potter must have been strategic, but I would never have guessed your campaign was quite so deviant," he commented.

"Nor would I," she agreed. " _If,_ that is," she amended, "I didn't know you better."

He felt his eyes narrow.

 _She thinks she has me,_ he realized, laughing internally. _She thinks she'll win -_

"You don't know me at all, Granger," he murmured, resolving to prove his point.

* * *

She waited for him to cross the room; she figured she could imagine him stalking slowly towards her, prowling in his gilded way, just as easily as she could see him forcefully shoving her back, and she felt a thrill flutter up her spine in anticipation, wondering how he would do it, how he would _take her_ -

"Take your shirt off," he said, still leaning against the dresser. He had his palms resting back against the wood, his hips leaned nonchalantly against it, and his grey eyes bore a sharp, distinct glimmer of controlled anticipation.

She opened her mouth to argue but at his arched brow she bit her tongue, instead reaching down to undo the buttons of her blouse, sliding it over her shoulders and waiting as his gaze skated hungrily over her breasts, raking over the front of her torso and then holding on hers as he reached down, unbuttoning his trousers and slipping his hand down over his cock, starting to stroke it as he watched her.

She inhaled sharply, caught off guard; she realized he was testing her limits, toying with her sensibilities, and then she felt herself smile, rising to her feet to slip out of her pencil skirt before laying back on the bed, parting her legs and slipping one hand under the lace of her underwear.

"Come on, Malfoy," she said playfully, beginning to slide her fingers along her clit. "Scared?"

"Scared?" he echoed, shaking his head and groaning a little as she licked her left thumb, sliding it under the lip of her bra and teasing her nipple, fighting a breathy laugh as she watched his breath catch. "Hardly."

"Then let me see it," she added, letting her heels dig into the duvet as she arched her hips up, sliding two of her fingers into her cunt and letting him watch, her heart thudding in her chest as his lips parted, accommodating a choked out moan before he reached up, tearing his shirt from his shoulders and then slipping out of his trousers and trunks before returning to his cock, running a hand over it and sliding his thumb across the liquid already pooling at his tip.

"This, Granger?" he asked, gripping it firmly as he smirked. "You can taste it, if you like."

For a moment she desperately wanted to, was insatiably curious about it; she wondered if he would pound against her mouth or if he'd want it slow, deep, wholly devoured - he seemed, she thought, like the kind of man who'd have a preference, an established liking, and she wanted to both shatter his illusions and also learn what made him weak, what made him groan, what made him fucking -

 _Come._

A moan fought its way from her lips as she pictured his handsome face contorting in a twist of ecstatic anguish - of _this, Granger?_ becoming _yes, Granger -_ and brought her hips up again, grinding against her hand, the lace of her panties soaked by the intensity of her imagination alone. "I could," she agreed, feeling her breath quicken, "but I don't know if you can do any better than I can, Malfoy - "

At that, his eyes widened, a choked indication of his disagreement escaping from his throat as he stepped forward, taking the bait and kneeling on the bed, settling himself between her legs and jerking her hips forward, settling her legs atop his shoulders. She pulled her hand away, breathless, but he grabbed her fingers, returning them to where they had been.

"Keep going," he rasped hoarsely, his pale blond hair that was always so neat and so fucking _obnoxiously styled_ during all his twatting press conferences suddenly falling onto his forehead, dusting the pale skin of his face, making him a little less perfect -

 _But also a little more beautiful_ , she thought, swallowing the observation and returning her attention to her own aching need.

He watched her as she writhed beneath her own hand, not even bothering with himself; he slid his hands along the inside of her thighs, kneading the curves of them as he gritted his teeth, waiting, and she came close, closer, _closer,_ waiting if he would do anything but he only stared, the curve of his throat bobbing tellingly as he swallowed and she grew more intent with her strokes, shutting her eyes and throwing her head back as she came.

His eyes were wild when she opened them again, panting, and he was staring at her with an undisguised greed, an unfiltered _need_ -

"Good," he growled. "Now - "

He suddenly yanked her up, wrapping her legs around him as he carried her off the bed and slammed her against the wall, his hips bruising her thigh as he ran his lips along the side of her neck, his breath hot against her skin.

"Now I can show you," he murmured in her ear, " that I can do it better than _anyone_ can - "

"You'd better fuck me, Malfoy," she hissed, feeling the tip of his cock tease against the wetness at her slit, "and stop dicking around."

"You," he snarled, pinning her wrists above her head and rutting against her clit, "need to learn some manners, Granger."

"Do I?" she taunted, tightening her legs around his hips. "Maybe you'd better teach me a lesson, then, Malfoy - "

"Don't," he said, biting down on her earlobe and giving her a shove for emphasis. "You think this is a game?" he asked, his voice strangely intimate in her ear. "You don't even know what fucking game you're playing - "

They both held their breath as he shifted her in his arms, sliding his cock inside her; it was more filling, _infinitely_ more satisfying than her fingers had been, and she felt herself clench tightly around him, swallowed up in agony almost immediately as he took his time, each thrust slow, purposeful, controlled.

"Come on," she growled furiously, slamming her head against the wall as he lowered his head to her breasts, his tongue slipping over the thin lace, "fucking - _fuck me,_ Malfoy - "

He chuckled, pressing a kiss to her sternum before giving her a hard, mean thrust. "I thought I told you," he whispered. "You need to learn some _manners,_ Granger," he said softly, taking hold of her hair and pulling it as she let out a gasp, leaving him to scrape his teeth against her throat.

* * *

 _Fuck,_ she was good - hot and tight and _wet -_

And utterly infuriating.

He shifted her in his arms, gripping the curve of her arse and hitting what he knew was her g-spot, gritting his teeth as he forced himself to go slow, to draw it out, to make her whine in frustration and grind against him, begging for more.

 _You think you're going to win,_ he thought, laughing internally, _you have no idea -_

"Manners," he murmured as she started to dig her nails into his back, rough and furious. "You'll have to be _polite,_ Granger - "

"Fuck," she choked out, leaning against him to bite down on the curve of his neck where it met the slope of his shoulder, biting into the tension that held her. "Please," she spat bitterly, coiling her fingers in his hair and yanking his head back, forcing him to look at the darkened amber of her eyes. " _Please,_ Malfoy - "

"Oh, Granger," he tsked, laughing breathlessly as she tugged his hair back again in displeasure, glaring at him. "You think I want to be called my father's name in the bedroom?"

There was a momentary struggle in her gaze as she stared at him, hesitating, but as he gifted her another unapologetic thrust he saw the opposition melt from her expression, her lips parting as she said his name, first a quiet whisper, and then, as she must have seen the reaction on his face, louder, more insistent -

"Draco," she said, and he heard the hint of pleading that he'd wanted, the thing he knew would echo in his mind for the rest of time when he watched her on the news, _it's only a step away from tyranny -_

 _I'll show you who's a tyrant,_ he thought, pulling away from the wall and dropping to the floor, setting her against the carpet that was warmed by the blazing fire, searing against them, reducing them to sweat and pressure and fucking _gritted teeth_.

She rolled him over, forcing him onto his back, and he brought his lips to her breasts, licking over them and then biting at her nipple, letting his teeth scrape against the ivory of her skin.

"I'm going to win this election," she panted euphorically, writhing above him on the floor; he was conscious of the burning at his back but couldn't think of anything except _fucking her,_ owning her completely, making her swallow her taunts as they devolved to the sound of his name -

"You're not," he muttered, thrusting his hips up beneath her and digging his fingers into her hips. "You're fucking _not_ , Granger - "

"I'm going to win," she said, emitting a hoarse, breathy laugh, "and I'm going to fuck you again when I do - "

"I'm fucking _you_ , Granger," he corrected her, flipping her into her back and driving into her with an unrelenting force. "And when _I_ win, you're going to apologize" - he sucked in a breath as she reached down, grabbing his arse - "and you're going to tell it to my cock while you're down on your knees - "

"When I win," she interjected furiously, and he could see how close she was, could see her eyes glazing over, "you're going to fuck me with your fucking smartass mouth, you're going to make me come over and over before I even begin to _touch you,_ Malfoy - "

"Draco," he corrected her sharply, "and when I win you're going to be gagged, Granger - "

"Hermione," she hissed, "and when I win, I'm fucking tying you to the bed, you little shit - "

"Fuck you," he snarled, pulling her lips to his, and her response - _fuck you too,_ he assumed - was lost as he slid his tongue in her mouth, kissing her with a bruising, graceless force, devouring her and savoring the taste of her, burning and bitter and sweet.

She came, gasping breathlessly into his mouth, and he followed, forcing his eyes open to watch the beauty of her face as her exquisite expression of torment eased into beatific pleasure, her hair a wild halo around her head as his forehead collapsed against hers, a ragged breath escaping from his mouth to float against her lips.

"This was a mistake," he whispered, and she nodded.

He gave it ten minutes before they did it again.

* * *

 _ **a/n:**_ _Ahhh, Dramione. Happy birthday to me. Thanks for following my 8 Days of (semi)Murder!_


	10. Close

**Close**

 _Pairing:_ Dumblemort (Albus Dumbledore x Tom Riddle)

 _Universe:_ Canon

 _Rating:_ T for implied transgressions

 _Summary:_ There is more to the story than Albus has told.

* * *

It's close to eleven when Tom Riddle stands from his desk, glancing over the parchment in front of him and scrutinizing it quickly before offering it to Albus, meeting his eye.

"Professor," he says, his voice as smooth and quiet as always. "Is this correct?"

Albus skims the page, nodding every so often as he comes across a salient point.

"Yes, this is quite good, Mr Riddle," he says, and Tom looks relieved.

No, Albus thinks; relieved isn't the right word.

Albus feels a slight tilt to the world, as he usually does when something in his head isn't quite right. Ultimately, though, he discards it along with the parchment and hands the moment's contents back to Tom, who accepts the offering with a fleeting smile.

"I'd hoped you would think so," Tom murmurs, and it isn't until long after he gathers his things and leaves a vacancy in his place that Albus finally places the look in his eye.

It isn't relief, Albus realizes, shuddering.

It's anticipation.

* * *

It's close to three when Albus hears a knock on the door, interrupting his reverie.

"Mr Riddle," Albus remarks at the sight of him, looking up to find Tom in the doorway. "Office hours are nearly over."

"I know," Tom says, his mouth twitching up into something of an apologetic smile. "I thought you might spare a few extra minutes."

"Oh?" Albus asks, leaning back in his chair. "I hate to tell you this, Tom, but occasionally, we professors do venture outside our classrooms."

Tom chuckles.

"It is quite hard to picture you outside this room," he admits casually, taking a seat across from Albus. "You look very at home here," Tom adds, his blue eyes slowly lifting from the surface of the desk between them to rise to Albus' face, coming to rest with a strange sort of gentleness, alighting on the curve of his cheek. "As if you'd be quite lost elsewhere," he murmurs.

Albus swallows.

"I suppose I would be," Albus permits, forcing moisture to his throat. "I've known very little outside this castle recently, much less these four walls."

"Must be tiresome, all caged up like that," Tom offers softly. "Isn't it?"

Albus finds himself suddenly off-kilter, too unsettled to laugh.

"I'm not in a cage, Tom," he manages, and Tom smiles.

"Of course not, Professor," he returns, but he looks sated, somehow.

As if he's gotten what he came for.

* * *

It's close to ten when Tom appears again, making a habit of attending Albus' office hours. He always comes in at the end, always prepared with a series of poignant questions from Albus' lectures - though it occurs to Albus that _of course_ he would be prepared; why else would he bother coming?

 _What else would he want?_ Albus asks himself, and hates that such a thought occurs.

 _What else_ could _he want?_

"Professor," Tom says, glancing up from his textbook. "You look far away, sir."

"Do I?" Albus asks, and blinks, sparing him a smile. "You know, Tom," he says, making an effort at normality, "I notice you have a way with some of the other boys in your class."

Tom's mouth twitches coyly. "Do I?"

Albus feels his face heat.

"I think your example could go a long way," Albus forcefully continues. "Blood purity continues to be an issue among many of the young men in your house," he explains, "and a more tolerant attitude from an intellectually gifted peer could be a step in the right direction."

"You don't think I might share their beliefs?" Tom asks neutrally.

"I know you can't possibly," Albus reminds him. "You know your history as well as I do, Tom. Better than."

Tom blanches but says nothing, leaning onto his elbow.

"And what, then," he muses, "would my intellectual gifts compel me to do, Professor?"

Albus shrugs. "Perhaps leaning towards tolerance would do some good," he offers, and Tom locks eyes with him, the blue sparking with something like interest, though it is quickly and carefully concealed.

"I suppose you consider it your duty to fight for good," Tom remarks. "Being the defender of the wizarding world, as you are."

Albus lifts a brow.

"I do not define myself by any one duel or cause," he says.

"Then how do you define yourself?" Tom asks.

"I live by my conscience," Albus replies. "I do what I can to right my wrongs."

Tom pauses, considering this answer, and leans forward.

"I would like to have a few wrongs first, I think," Tom says, and Albus tries his best not to be impacted by the timbre of his voice, low and intimate in the darkened room.

"You'd have to right them," Albus reminds him, and Tom smiles.

"Well, perhaps I'm not as good a man as you, Professor," he remarks blithely, before turning his attention back to his textbook.

* * *

It's close to trouble when Tom starts coming later at night. He seems to notice when Albus leaves the dinner table, and catches him in the corridor.

"May I study in your office?" Tom asks. "I find it easier to focus."

"The libraries are quiet," Albus suggests, and Tom's mouth hardens.

"They're not, actually," he says, a shadow falling over his face. "There are not many who share my dedication to my work, sir. I find their presence distracting."

"And my presence?" Albus asks. "Is that not distracting?"

"Not at all," Tom says. "I feel quite comfortable around you. Your presence is stimulating," he adds, amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth, "in a way that others my age are not."

"I'm your teacher, Tom," Albus warns, though he's uncertain why he felt the warning necessary.

Perhaps because this boy - this man - has been something strange from the start.

Something dangerous, and poised to ignite.

"Professor," Tom says, frowning, "if I'm making you uncomfortable - "

"No, no," Albus assures him, mildly horrified with himself. "I just want to be sure you know there are boundaries."

"I know," Tom permits easily. "But if _you_ feel - "

"I don't feel anything," Albus interrupts, and blinks. "You're welcome to study in my office," he amends hurriedly, wondering what possessed him to say it.

Tom nods, reassured.

"Well," Tom says. "Then I suppose I'll see you tonight."

* * *

It's close to madness when Tom crosses the desk, leaning over to point something out in his textbook.

"This spell," he murmurs, and Albus can practically taste the pumpkin juice on his lips, can see the precise color of his tongue as it slips out in concentration; he feels the tension of the moment, finding the entire experience sensational in every facet of the word. "If you were to alter the wand pattern, then I would imagine you could - "

Tom stops, his dark brow furrowing, and blinks.

Albus' presence of mind staggers haltingly to fruition.

"Yes?" he asks.

Tom laughs.

"Sorry," he says. "I just thought I lost you for a second, sir."

"No," Albus says, shaking his head. "No, of course not. Just a bit tired, I'm afraid," he says. "Had quite a lot of papers to grade this week, as you know."

Tom pauses for a moment, opening his mouth to speak, and seems to think better of it.

"How long has it been?" Tom eventually asks, and Albus' heart falters.

 _Too long,_ he thinks mournfully, before he realizes that can't possibly be the question.

"I - "

"Since you were last out of your cage, I mean," Tom amends, permitting another smile, but Albus rises abruptly to his feet.

"I - you should go," he grounds out firmly. "It's - it's quite late, Tom, and curfew is soon, and - "

Tom closes his textbook, his fingers sliding slowly, deliberately across the cover.

"I scare you," Tom comments.

Albus doesn't find the point worth arguing.

"In many ways," he permits.

"Do I remind you of someone?" Tom asks carefully.

The words tumble out without Albus' permission.

"No," he says. "You are nothing like him."

For a moment, they're both silent.

Then Tom straightens, and though Albus is quite a tall man, Tom is very nearly Albus' height.

"Do you love all your enemies, sir," Tom poses slowly, "or do you only make enemies of those you love?"

Albus closes his eyes.

"Go," he says.

He waits until he hears the door open and close, Tom's presence in the room swept along with it, before he opens his eyes again, struggling to catch his breath.

When he falls into his chair, Albus finds that he is shaking.

* * *

It's close to hell for him now, watching Tom watch him in class. He feels the quiet, piercing stare on his back, feels him following every line of his movements, and it takes all he possesses to concentrate. He avoids Tom, does not look him in the eye, does not pause beside him, intentionally does not call on him in class - if only because he is certain his voice will tremble to speak his name aloud.

"Professor," Tom says, his voice low, and Albus drops the teacup he has just transfigured, wincing as it shatters on the floor.

"Is everything alright, sir?" Abraxas Malfoy asks, and Albus curls his hand into a fist.

"Just a bit unsteady," he says, trying not to watch Tom's lips curl into a smile.

* * *

It's close to torment when Tom appears in his classroom that evening.

"We have to do something about this," Tom remarks.

Albus says nothing.

"My education is suffering," Tom teases, and Albus cannot bear it.

He closes his eyes again, unable to watch, unable to think, and hears Tom make his way across the room, his bag falling to the ground.

He hears the rustle of fabric, of buttons hitting the hard stone floor.

He holds his breath, hearing his own heart ricochet in the silence, and when he opens his eyes, Tom is rolling up the sleeves of his crisp, white shirt, having discarded his jacket on the ground.

"I'm quite good with secrets," Tom says. "I suspect you are, too."

"Don't do this," Albus begs, but Tom is already behind the desk, sleek and catlike as he takes Albus' hand, drawing it up to his mouth.

Tom brushes his lips against Albus' palm before sliding it down his torso, bringing it to the button of his trousers and then lower; lower until Albus can no longer deny that lines are being crossed; lower until Albus can no longer see anything but a precipice; lower until it's too late -

Until Albus is held captive by the lines of his own hands.

"How long has it been since you last ventured out from your cage?" Tom asks.

Albus says nothing, feeling his heart race, and Tom nimbly drops to his knees.

"I can free you," he whispers.

He reaches for Albus' zipper.

Albus shatters and breaks.

* * *

It's close to the end of the school year when Myrtle Warren dies, and Albus is certain he knows who is responsible.

The implication of the Heir of Slytherin; the particular creature responsible; the obvious increase in reverence for Tom from the boys he hangs around with.

Albus knows, and he is terribly bound by silence.

"Mr Riddle," he says quietly, calling out to him as his class is emptying for the day, and Tom pauses.

"So formal," Tom drawls, venturing over to his desk.

Albus can scarcely stand to be near it, but he forces himself not to falter.

"You killed Myrtle Warren," Albus accuses steadily.

He doesn't bother providing evidence; he knows he can't. He just wants to say the words. He wants Tom to know that he knows.

Tom smiles.

"Tell them I did it, then," Tom invites.

Albus swallows.

"Ah, you can't, can you?" Tom laments insincerely. "Why not, _Professor_?"

Albus flinches.

Tom leans in, his smile turning cruel as he whispers in Albus' ear.

"I'll always remember how you taste," he promises. "I thought you'd taste so sweet, Professor, but it was bitter in the end. Like desperation," he murmurs, "and _weakness_."

Albus makes a wordless, incomprehensible sound of pain.

"Have a nice day, Professor," Tom says gravely, throwing his bag over his shoulder and licking his lips as he exits the room.

* * *

It's close to too late when Albus learns the Riddles have been killed.

Not _close to_ , he corrects himself.

It's too late.

"Why are you doing this?" Albus demands, gripping Tom's arm before he leaves the empty classroom. "You can't possibly believe this will bring you satisfaction - "

"You actually have no idea what satisfies me," Tom replies without expression.

Albus releases his arm.

"I won't let you do this," he says, and he means to be firm, but he's pleading. "I won't let you _be_ this - "

Tom turns, his blue eyes leveling with Albus' with an unnerving, unsettling stillness.

"How will you stop me?" he asks. "You couldn't even refuse me."

The air turns cold, and Albus' veins turn to ice.

"So this is it, then," he says, taking a step back. "There's no turning back for you, is there?"

Tom laughs callously, letting his head fall back, and promptly convulses in silence.

"No," he confirms simply. "And I thank you for that. For proving me right," he says bitterly, "and proving that everything's mine for the taking."

Albus bends his head, his spine bowing to consummate suffering.

And then, in a breath, Tom Riddle is gone.

* * *

It's close to half a century later when Albus finally understands what Tom has done; he finally confirms a half-baked theory, an accusation he has never been able to prove, when a young boy brings him a diary that's been stabbed by a basilisk fang.

"What is it?" Harry Potter asks curiously, but Albus doesn't tell him.

Albus speaks of very little anymore.

* * *

It's close to deafening silence, a screeching in his ears, when Albus sees the familiar parchment waiting for him on his desk. The owl who delivered it is gone.

 _You know I can see you_ , Tom tells him in the letter; it's not signed, but after countless letters like this one, Albus knows to expect the meticulous script whenever Tom is lonely, whether he is soaring at the highs or suffering the lows. _I can see you through Harry Potter's eyes. Is this what you wanted, Albus? Another young boy to put his life in your hands?_

Albus resolves to keep himself out of Harry's sight, explaining nothing.

Better silence, he thinks, than another betrayal.

Better silence than to make Harry suffer his mistakes.

* * *

It's close to the end by the time Albus realizes he has destroyed another boy's faith, when he watches Harry's face lose its innocence after what he sees that night in the cave.

"Forgive me," he wants to say to Harry, but his throat will not permit the words, and his mind is still somewhere else, still trapped behind a desk in a Transfiguration classroom where he might have made a different choice.

"I always thought you'd be the one to kill me," he deliriously says aloud, or thinks he says aloud, reaching for what he thinks is Tom's face as he stumbles back over the Astronomy Tower railing.

For a moment, Albus imagines the world not as it is, but as it might have been if he'd been stronger; if he'd been as strong as Harry thought he was, and not as weak as Tom had known. He stretches a hand out, pressing it to the curl of Tom Riddle's lips, and closes his eyes.

For a moment, he possesses it.

For a moment, he's _so close_ -

And it isn't fear, he realizes, feeling a slight tilt to the world as he falls.

It isn't fear.

It's relief.

* * *

 **a/n:** For the curious: _Res Publica_ will indeed be continued, but I've decided to hold off until I can do it as a full WIP. Thank you for those of you who read this collection, which is quite literally the depths of depravity in so many ways. I adore you most of all. Thanks to Aurora for running with this (granted, with enthusiasm), and Sally for still being my friend after she told me not to write it and I did anyway.


	11. Eyes Closed

**Eyes Closed**

 _Pairing:_ Tomcissa (Tom Riddle x Narcissa Malfoy)

 _Universe:_ Canon

 _Rating:_ M for general darkness? Elements of macabre.

 _Summary:_ A very late Halloween [trick-or-] treat based on an edit by aurorarsinistra.

An updated summary, in Aurora's own words:

"Ever been disappointed by canon? Desperate for more details about horcruxes? Unconvinced that Tom Riddle would simply cross his fingers and hope for the best? Well READ THIS because I fixed it, you're welcome."

* * *

 _ **1981  
**_ _ **The End**_

The castle was much like he had been; dark and foreboding and multifaceted, beautiful in the light and ominous in the shadows, sharp and solid and yet, in a strange, intangible sense, as gossamer as a spider's web. It made sense to her that he had chosen this, a castle on a rocky island, a mimicry of the founders of Hogwarts rather than the pureblood nobles who had so willingly signed onto a vision they could scarcely understand.

He'd built all of it from nothing, and they would never understand that, either, beyond some nameless sense of awe. In the end, they had never truly known what he was made of.

They'd only held to the hope he wouldn't destroy them with it.

She'd run through these corridors once, feeling the castle twist and curl around her, leading her somewhere she didn't know or want to know or care to understand. This had been his castle, his magic, his rules. From the brine of the ocean tide to the salt of the breeze, everything here had been his—herself included.

She paused against the wall of the west battlement now, inhaling the wind that whipped against her cheek. She could no longer hear his voice, but she could feel him still. She shut her eyes and watched him again in her mind; the frame of his shoulders, the line of his back. The parts of him that were unworldly, godlike.

The flash of his eyes, the shape of his mouth, the motion of his fingers.

The sound of his breath, the taste of his lips, the searing poetry in his touch.

The way he made a room stand in fear, in awe, in wonder.

She'd told herself the world was so much bigger than just one man, even a man like him, but nothing had ever been more than he was. There was a time she could have worshipped him, exalted him, knelt at his altar like religion. If he'd told her he created the universe with his bare hands, cobbled it from nothing, she'd have believed him without question.

But that time had long, long passed.

 _I know better than anyone what you're made of,_ he'd said to her once, and she heard his voice now, as clearly as if it carried on the wind.

"In the end," she whispered to him, "you never really knew, did you?"

He was gone now.

He was gone.

She was the one left standing.

* * *

 _ **1978  
**_ _ **The Beginning**_

"Wait here. Don't touch anything."

Narcissa bristled internally at the command, but forced a nod.

"You'll want to hold your tongue, too," her husband continued. "Don't speak unless spoken to. Do you understand?"

 _Yes,_ she thought fiercely, _of course I understand, I understand everything, I've understood it all since I was born, that you are infinitely less clever and less interesting and less accomplished and less less less than I but because you have money, because you have charm, because you have a name that means something and because you have my father's seal of approval I must nod mutely, bat my lashes like a doll, and align myself steadfastly with your will._

"Yes," she managed quietly, and Lucius nodded, satisfied.

"He'll be pleased with you, I'm sure," he assured her, with something she might have called kindness if she hadn't had the distinct sensation that he was talking about some sort of prized bird, or a particularly adept hunting dog. "Don't be nervous."

She wasn't.

He, however, clearly _was_ , sweat glistening in beads from his brow as he stooped to kiss her cheek. He brushed his lips against her skin so absently she wondered if he knew he were doing it.

"I'll come fetch you when he's ready," Lucius said, already adrift with nerves, and slipped out through the doorframe.

He'd _fetch_ her, her mind echoed.

She bristled, shoving it aside.

She stood in the magic castle built by the man who called himself a Lord and wanted to laugh at the foolishness of what the world had come to. The arrogance of it was palpable, and her displeasure at the absurdity and the inanity and the _inequity_ manifested as a fidget in her limbs, her fingers tapping helplessly against the beading of her new gown. The fact that this, the finery she was encased in, had been chosen for this particular moment—for the approval of what she imagined to be a silly old man in a crooked crown, the overlord of a wild kingdom—was restricting in the worst way; she felt she was play-acting, trapped in a mindless show performed for others.

The sky outside was more than grey; it was thick and viscous, stained that strange, smoky plum-tinted red. The color of unease, were she to put it on a palette, and she could no more stand the walls around her than she could stand living in Lucius' home.

 _He'd said to wait here_ , she thought with displeasure, eyeing the door.

She'd never done well with direction.

And it wasn't as if she'd go far.

Her heels tapped lightly against the smoothly polished stone floors, as dark and shadowed as the cliffs outside. If she closed her eyes, she could hear the crash of the waves; she could hear, too, the percussive rush in her veins, hear her mother's voice shouting _SIT DOWN NARCISSA, CHILD DO AS YOU'RE TOLD,_ that was quieted only by the sound of her feet.

The sounds of progress, of freedom, of rebellion.

Where was she? The corridors were labyrinthine; not that it mattered. What would Lucius do, anyway, if she weren't there when he came for the _fetching_? He couldn't _un_ -marry her. Not without oaths, binds, spells. Not without humiliation. He didn't seem the punishing type, either, though she couldn't necessarily be sure. Not yet.

In the ominous unease of her thoughts, she paused beside an open door, almost missing it in the darkened corridor.

As she turned her head, however, the door seemed to give way, beckoning her inside.

The inside of the room was unremarkable; it didn't have the finery of the room she'd been left in, which had been full of books and artefacts and paintings, sundry landscapes of foreign places she'd never been and would likely never see. _That_ room had been grandiose to make her feel small, she was sure, but she was easily the most ornamental thing in this one. There was a single table, a workspace, a cauldron over an open flame that manifested from nothing. She stepped around the cauldron, watching the emerald sparks dance from inside it, and glanced at a series of items laid out on a bench, cataloguing them one by one.

A single white flower.

A small jar of nightshade.

Three neatly arranged slivers of wood.

A vial of crimson liquid.

A _human bone._

She gasped, recoiling, and faltered with her footing; she felt fingers close around her arm and froze, her suspended breath swelling painfully in her lungs.

"Careful," a man's voice warned, and she aimed her chin over her shoulder slowly, taking him in inch by inch.

She saw him in snippets first; in flashes, as if he were too much to take in all at once. His jaw, firstly, smooth and carved and jutted out as his teeth shifted, his lips stretching just enough to accommodate an uptick of something like amusement. His nose was straight and angular, his cheeks lean and cleanly shaven, his brow unworried and unconcerned and framing a set of eyes so piercingly, garishly blue she foolishly might have compared them to the waves outside had she not known perfectly well that they were grey and violent and crashing.

Still, she thought, blinking. He wasn't unlike the waves.

"I take it you are Bella's sister," he said neutrally, releasing her as she pivoted sharply to face him. "This isn't exactly how I was expecting to meet you, but I have to admit some curiosities."

He wasn't as old as she thought he would be. True, wizards aged slowly, but even so; he had a youthful look to him, though he was clearly older than her husband, and perhaps even as old as her father-in-law.

She'd half-expected to see him in emperor's robes, openly playing at tyranny, but instead he wore a plain, crisp white shirt, tucked into black trousers and emphasizing the leanness in his hips, along his torso, in the lines of his forearms. His movements were smooth and unconcerned, unhindered, and she, uncomfortably, forced a swallow.

Abraxas Malfoy did not look like this.

No man she'd ever seen looked like _this_.

"You must be Bella's keeper, then," she returned plainly, and his mouth curled up at the corners.

"She isn't kept," he replied. "Are you kept by Lucius?"

She wished she could've held her tongue.

"Aren't I?" she prompted. "In a sense."

To her surprise, he chuckled. It was strange to see him express amusement; Lucius was so skittish when speaking of him she wouldn't have guessed him capable.

"I would have thought you'd aim higher," he said.

She was conscious enough of her own qualities not to ask why.

"I thought Lucius served you well," she remarked instead, and he nodded.

"He does. Does it please you," he ventured slyly, "knowing you married a servant?"

"One of my sisters married a rat," she replied, "and the other a fool. If I married a servant, then so be it. Considering the trajectory, I might have done a lot worse."

He laughed heartily this time, his head falling back, and then he swept a hand through his black hair, shaking his head.

"Ah, so she can play," he murmured, shaking his head. "I suppose I misjudged you, then."

"Happens often," she replied, and his tongue passed over his lips as he nodded slowly.

"I imagine so," he agreed. "I'll make sure not to make the same mistake twice. I don't suppose you'll apologize," he transitioned smoothly, "for interrupting my work?"

"Is that what you call this?" she prompted skeptically, fighting a shudder at the sight of the bone on the table. "I thought your work was something of a more … _political_ nature," she managed, and he laughed again.

"I dabble," he said simply. "And about that apology?"

She hesitated; she _had_ meandered in, poking around in his things.

"I'm sorry," she permitted. "That I interrupted you, and that I entered without permission."

"No, no," he corrected, shaking his head. "Just the interruption. You were invited in. The door," he explained, gesturing to it, "wouldn't have opened for you otherwise."

"I—" she frowned. "The door?"

"Sentient castle, in a sense," he clarified, waving a hand to blindly reference the walls. "Does my will rather exclusively, however. Not quite refined enough to have any direction of its own, so I expect this means I wanted you to come here."

"We've never met," she reminded him, and he shrugged.

"Then maybe the castle is maturing," he remarked, turning back to the cauldron. "Are you familiar with this type of magic?" he asked, without looking at her. "I know the Black family is quite advanced in the arcane."

"You mean the Dark Arts," she said, clearing her throat, and this time he glanced up, settling his gaze on her face.

For a moment he simply stared at her, contemplating something; she stared back, not wanting to be the one to cave. It wasn't until he took three strides towards her, his movements feline and coiled and swift, that she noticed the slim, silver dagger in his hand, only registering danger when she couldn't possibly have escaped it.

"Magic is magic," he said quietly, "just as blood is only blood."

He took her hand left hand in his and sliced it, slitting the skin of her hand so quickly she felt no pain, and she let out a sound that was half gasp, half wordless shriek; he, consummately unbothered, held the dagger out for her free hand, waiting for her to accept it.

"Now you," he beckoned, and she, obviously lost to madness, accepted the blade by its gilded handle, curling her fingers around it.

She swallowed hard, holding her breath, and he placed his left palm out for her to do the same, letting it float expectantly between them. She glanced down and froze, distracted by the line that curved around the center of his palm; or rather, what _should_ have been a line. In place of one was splintered web—tiny, slivered tributaries that swam across his hand—and she exhaled in dismay, unable to look away.

He waited, and though she knew well enough what was expected of her, she gripped the dagger hesitantly, fighting the urge to drop it and run.

Instead, wordlessly, she stabbed the knife directly into his palm, piercing the burst of fissured lines with her fingers still wrapped securely around the handle of the dagger. He jerked away in pain, his beautiful mouth coiling around surprise, and betrayed a sound of obvious, startled anguish, escaping in a gasp from his lips.

"Don't you _ever_ ," she told him flatly, "fucking stab me again."

His eyes widened.

Then he laughed, and she blinked with alarm, releasing the dagger and staggering away, her fingers curling protectively around the still-bleeding wound on her palm.

"Come here," he instructed curtly, yanking the dagger from his hand and holding it over the cauldron, letting three drops of his own blood fall into whatever nightmarish creation he'd been pursuing. "I won't hurt you," he assured her, placing his bloodied dagger on the workbench. "I just want you to see."

She kept her distance, uncertain, and he sighed, stepping towards her.

"Look," he said, holding his hand out, and gestured for her to do the same. "Blood is blood. You and I, we share mortality, we share chemistry," he explained softly, and she looked down, eyeing the viscous stains on their palms, as deep and rich as her mother's garnets she'd so envied as a child; as dark and textured and faceted as fairy-made wine. "This is the blessing and the curse, that we all bleed so similarly, and so easily. That you for your blood and me for mine mean nothing once we're sliced open and left to rot, and when we're gone, all that remains is the same basic matter that will only diminish us to nothing. Blood is more fragile than magic," he added, "but it is essentially all the same."

She waited, saying nothing.

"Dark or light, it means nothing. Magic is magic. Blood is blood." He waved his hand over her palm, renewing the surface of it so effortlessly she could not have possibly believed it had ever been opened; as if all of this had only been a dream. "To romanticize either, or to forbid either, is to waste time with minutiae. With mundanity. Such are the pitfalls of humanity," he added wryly, and then waved a hand over his own palm, holding it up for her scrutiny.

She paused, shaking her head.

"That isn't what you teach your followers," she said hoarsely, and his lips curled up in amusement again.

"I doubt they'd take kindly to the details of my work," he said. "In the end, I find there's more value in their loyalty than in the grasping of my vision."

"What if their loyalty corrupts your vision?" she asked, and he tilted his head, the smile slowly falling away.

"I suppose it's my job to prevent that, isn't it?" he supplied neutrally, though she had the strange sensation he was avoiding an answer. "Anyway, as you say, I'm pursuing a variety of avenues. This is one of them," he explained, "though a private one."

"Odd that you'd share it with me, then," she commented. "Does my sister know about this? Or Lucius?"

"For them, this room does not exist," he replied easily, shrugging it away as if it were nothing, though she could see in the way he didn't meet her eye that he clearly felt otherwise. "Now," he pronounced, "are you coming? I'm told I have the dreary misfortune of meeting Lucius Malfoy's new wife. Poor thing," he mused, glancing sideways at her, and she blinked. "I suppose we're all slaves to obligation, aren't we?"

She hesitated.

"How do I get back to where I was?" she asked, gesturing to the door.

He smiled; it was purposeful, deliberate. Unlike Lucius he studied her carefully, every motion of his gaze calculated to take her in.

"Isn't that the eternal question," he remarked, more to himself than to her.

 **oOo**

"My Lord," Lucius said, bowing low. "I'd like to present my wife, Narcissa Malfoy, the youngest daughter of Cygnus and Druella Black."

"Ah yes, Narcissa," the Dark Lord replied, surveying her from where he sat at the head of the room, his eyes glinting in the firelight. "Tell me, Lady Malfoy, are you pleased with your visit?"

She could see Lucius' eyes flash warningly, and she let out a breath, forcing a smile.

"Yes, My Lord," she replied. "Of course."

"Will you return, then?" he asked, and she blinked at that, surprised. She glanced at her husband for confirmation as he hurriedly stepped forward, bowing again.

"If My Lord wishes it, I would be happy to have my wife accompany me on my visits," he assured Lord Voldemort, and the other man nodded.

"You should stay the night," he suggested dispassionately, waving a hand. "Spare you the return in the morning."

Lucius looked surprised, but to Narcissa's dismay, he also looked obscenely delighted.

"Yes, of course, My Lord," he said, answering for them both.

Narcissa, meanwhile, wondered what her answer would have been.

No, she thought firmly, but felt the tremor of a lie.

She touched her left palm behind her back, pressing her fingers against it.

 **oOo**

"I thought you might find your way back here," he said, glancing up as she entered. "Couldn't sleep?"

 _I could have_ , she thought. _I just didn't want to_.

"You know, it's funny," he continued, not acknowledging her silence, "I can't read you the way I can read Bella. Her mind is noisy, clanging all the time. She has so many wants, so many needs, so many desires. I find it overwhelming; when she's with me, I long for silence." He looked over at her, eyeing her. "Your mind is quiet. Subdued. Your face, however," he said with a laugh, "expresses some level of anxiety."

Instantly, she swept it from her features, painting herself a mask.

"You didn't tell my husband that we'd already met," she commented. "You invited us to stay the night. I'm not an idiot," she informed him pointedly. "I just wanted to tell you that I won't be whatever my sister is for you."

To her surprise, he nodded.

"Good. Now that that's been addressed," he said, gesturing her to come closer, "we might discuss an arrangement. A _working_ arrangement," he clarified, catching the narrowing of her eyes. "I have quite another thing in mind for you."

She swallowed, stumbling on a mix of disappointment and surprise.

"Oh," she said dully, and stepped closer, waiting, as he gestured for her to stand beside him.

"This is not an easy task," he explained. "It's not for the squeamish, either, but I'd rather not attempt it alone. I want you to do something for me, but you can never speak of it, either to your sister, your husband, or to anyone else, alive or dead. Understood?"

"Alive or dead?" she echoed, and he shrugged.

"Just covering all of the possibilities," he said. "Am I clear?"

"What will I have to do?" she asked suspiciously, and he turned to face her, studying her for a moment before he spoke.

"I want you to kill me," he said, and she blinked, startled.

"What do you m-"

"I want you to kill me," he clarified, "and then I want you to bring me back."

She felt her jaw open and close, speechless, before he finally held up a hand, pausing her.

"I've created something," he began, and stopped, reconsidering. "Several somethings, actually. Have you heard of a horcrux?"

She started to say no, but he shook his head, intent on progress.

"I'll spare you the details; they're gory," he admitted, though he himself looked unfazed by the acknowledgement. "This once belonged to Godric Gryffindor," he continued, holding up the small silver dagger he'd cut her with earlier, and she noticed that in her initial panic, she'd previously missed the carved initials at the bottom of the handle. "It's one of many, and the least valuable in my estimation, but if I've been successful, it will be enough to bring me back. There's some other things involved," he conceded, tilting his head in thought, "and it's a bit complex, but if you're open to trying, then—"

"Are you insane?" she interrupted. "Is this some kind of—some sort of—" she faltered, stumbling over her words. "Are you _crazy_?" she demanded, taking three quick steps back, but he stepped towards her, shaking his head.

"Stop," he said, his voice edged with warning. "Breathe."

She inhaled.

He waited.

She exhaled.

"Good," he said, nodding. "As I was saying, a horcrux is an object imbued with a piece of my soul. Theoretically, I would be able to resurrect myself through the use of one. At this point, I can no longer resist the necessity to test it. Either I have defeated death," he postulated, " _or_ I've accomplished little more than gathering a group of miscreant purebloods, and I can no longer afford to be uncertain of the answer. Which is, in fact, _your_ doing," he added morosely, as if he were irritated by admitting it. "Though I've been considering it for quite some time."

She swallowed, taking another pair of deep breaths.

"It's not natural to bring someone back from the dead," she said carefully.

"Why does it matter what's natural?" he asked.

She waited, hoping to summon an answer.

"I don't know," she confessed, finding none. "I just thought it needed saying."

"Well, good," he said crisply, turning back to the cauldron. "You'll need to stab me again," he informed her, holding the handle of the dagger out for her. "You've proven yourself capable already, but it will need to be a bit more fatal this time. Only marginally."

"Right, of course," she scoffed faintly, and he smiled.

"There's more to the process than the sacrifice of life," he warned. "More to it than magic, too. I'll need to tell you things; secrets from my soul. You'll need to keep them for me," he said, with what she thought might have been quiet undertones of desperation. "I must ask you to keep them for me, even if I fail."

"This is quite a gamble," she noted, taking the handle from him and eyeing it before looking up, staring into the blue that was so vastly brighter than the rubies in her palm. "Wouldn't you rather take your chances with the life you were given?"

"For what?" he asked, seeming to genuinely not know the answer. "The world is an easy place to rule, Narcissa," he murmured. "I have conquered it already, and only endless tedium remains. Either I have conquered death, or I have done nothing that will outlast me. And if I have done nothing, why grow old?"

"Perhaps my sister has some thoughts on that," she attempted meagerly, and he grimaced.

"She's a gifted witch, Bellatrix," he conceded, "but her desires are as earthly as anything, and I'm destined for more."

She was running out of arguments; but still, she hadn't resolved to certainty.

"Why me, then?" she asked, because she doubted she could bear not knowing.

He shrugged. "The castle brought you here," he said. "My magic chose you. And besides," he added wryly, eyeing the knife, "you do have a natural aptitude."

She stared at the handle, finding herself saddled with the problematic combination of no further opposition and an immense, unbearable curiosity.

"What do I do?" she asked, and he took a slow, deep breath.

"Listen closely," he said, and stepped closer, his gaze falling inescapably on hers. "I'm putting my life in your hands, Narcissa."

 **oOo**

"My name is Tom Riddle," he choked out when she stabbed him; _a slit to the throat would be quicker_ , he admitted, _but my secrets are as important to this as anything else, and I need you to be certain they bleed along with me._ "I was born an orphan, the son of a pathetic witch and a heartless, foolish muggle, and I killed them both; my mother with my birth, and my father with my wand."

His grip on her slackened slightly for a moment and she looked down, eyeing the glow of the silver dagger in her hand as a translucent specter began to manifest from it.

"I was born to nothing," he retched, his nails scraping at her arm, "and I have felt nothing, I have done nothing, and this is what I fear: that I will die as they have died, by the hand of someone who feels nothing for me. Who extinguishes me so easily it is as though I never _existed_ —"

"Tom," she whispered, watching his head loll back; he was bleeding in earnest, dying a gruesomely visceral death all over her dress, and the dagger in her hand began to pulse with warning, filling the room with a bright, unbearable radiance. "Tom, are you—what am I supposed to—"

"Don't let go," he said through gritted teeth, his eyes wild as he stared at her, shock gradually giving way to pain. "Narcissa," he forced out in anguish, " _do not_ let go—"

"I won't," she assured him, though she felt certain she was going to be sick; she'd never seen so much blood. She'd never witnessed death, never known how ugly it was, and how strangely, dauntingly human. "I won't, Tom, I've got the dagger, I've got it—"

"Don't let go," he pleaded again, his eyes meeting hers this time, and then, without warning, the dagger in her hand exploded with light, delivering her to blindness.

 **oOo**

When she opened her eyes, clearing the ringing from her ears, it was to Lord Voldemort's corpse lying still in her arms. She inhaled sharply, her hand still curled around the dagger, and pondered whether to vomit or run; her dress, her hands were covered in blood—she could feel it stretched dry across her skin—and it was a sickness, a loathing, a desperate, quaking fear that had replaced the air in her lungs, clawing tight around her throat.

"You killed me," she heard behind her, and she spun, scrambling away as the Dark Lord—a much younger Dark Lord, his hair swept from his eyes and a frown burrowed in his brow—stared down at her, bemused. "Who are you?"

She took a moment, trying to still her thudding heart, and rose slowly to her feet.

"I'm Narcissa," she told him carefully. "Narcissa Bl-" she paused. "Narcissa Malfoy."

The Dark Lord before her blinked, staring down at his hands, and then looked back at her.

"Narcissa," he repeated quietly, and she felt her breath quicken, noting the look in his eye as his gaze settled on her face, traveling carefully over her cheek.

"Tom," she whispered, letting him pull her to her feet.

* * *

 _ **1979  
**_ _ **The Dark Lord**_

"Lucius," the Dark Lord beckoned, surveying him from where he sat and crooking a finger, his eyes glinting in the firelight. "Come here."

"My Lord?" Lucius asked, venturing forward. At the back of the room, Narcissa swallowed hard, compelling herself to leave; _run_ , she thought fiercely, _you won't like what you see_ , but there was no looking away. She closed her eyes briefly, focusing so intently on the sound of raindrops above their heads she half-thought she could feel the droplets bursting on her shoulders, cracking like tiny, violent fissures down her spine.

"Rodolphus tells me you were unsuccessful with the goblins," the Dark Lord postured, his thumb running thoughtfully across his lower lip. He curled his fingers around the goblet on his right, contemplating it for a second; around the room, Narcissa could feel the captive breaths, the tension poised to snap, and then he rose to his feet, carefully taking a single step in Lucius' direction.

"I take it you have an explanation," Lord Voldemort suggested drily, his eyes dropping to regard the angle of Lucius' bent head. "Do you?"

"They demanded wands," Lucius said, clearing his throat. "I felt it unwise to indulge them."

"Why?" Lord Voldemort countered, his voice an eerie, charged quietude. "You have a wand, Lucius. Why deny it to your would-be allies?"

Lucius' shoulders stiffened.

"Begging your pardon, My Lord—"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Lord Voldemort cut in sharply, prompting Lucius to flinch. "If you're going to _beg_ my pardon, Lucius, then be sure to do it wisely, and do it well." He took a few steps closer, eyeing the exposed line at the back of Lucius' neck before glancing up, catching Narcissa's eye. "You know," he began, leaning over to speak in Lucius' ear, "your wife is watching you. She's watching you serve your master, Lucius, and if I were you, I wouldn't do anything to upset me too greatly, or she will have to watch my displeasure, too."

Lucius visibly shuddered, and Narcissa turned her head away.

"So," Lord Voldemort prompted, louder, "you were begging, Lucius?"

Lucius hesitated, his pale hair glinting in the light, and then his chin dropped, the words nearly muffled into the floor.

"I am not a goblin, My Lord," he mumbled. "I earned my right to my wand when I was born to it, and—"

Only Narcissa saw the Dark Lord's fingers twitch.

Only she caught the rage that dug into the gaps of his spine.

Only she held her breath, anticipating the storm that broached the breathless room's horizon.

"Ah yes," Lord Voldemort chuckled. "How silly of me to permit that to slip my mind, Lucius, when you do _so rarely_ allow anyone to overlook your worth. I forget how much stock you put in birth—in blood. Nearly enough that you forget about power, don't you?"

He looked up then, catching Narcissa's eye, and as if she were the one at his mercy, she shuddered without warning.

He didn't even lift his wand; he didn't speak an incantation.

Instead, as if he'd drawn his magic from the very fibers of the air around her, the charge of it swept through her veins, thrilling her morbidly to watch him.

At his feet, her husband let out a sharp cry of pain, the rest of the room's lungs vacating in concert as they watched the handsome, dispassionate Lord at the head of the room bring their own lordly peer to anguish without a motion, without a breath, without even the blink of an eye. To them, the Dark Lord only seemed to be getting younger, more powerful, more ruthless; because his Death Eaters could not understand what they were witnessing, they only feared him more intently, worshipped him more zealously.

They could not have known he was both more and less than what they feared, but she did.

She knew him.

She knew, too, that he was putting on a show for her.

 _Tom_ , she mouthed with a tiny grimace of displeasure, _please._

His mouth twitched, his tongue darting between his lips; testing her resolve.

Lucius gave another terrible, gut-wrenching yell, and Narcissa winced.

 _Tom,_ she mouthed again, shaking her head. _Stop._

"Have you had enough?" he asked neutrally, finally taking a step back, and Lucius collapsed, panting, his blond hair matted and slick against his face.

Narcissa slipped out of the room, not bothering to look back.

 **oOo**

He'd come back a different person than he'd been.

" _We can't do this, Tom," she begged in the moments that he looked at her too long, when he'd run his fingers carefully along her spine, when he'd stood too close to her, making it impossible to breathe. "You ask too much of me."_

" _You killed me once," he reminded her, as if she could possibly forget. "You killed me and brought me back, and you used your own power, your own blood, and you held my very soul in your hands to do it. Do you really think I can ever be parted from you, or you from me? That I can ever accept that you weren't made for me?"_

 _She said nothing._

 _There was nothing to say._

" _How can you live with a man who isn't me?" he pressed, always too close, always too tempting, always too captivating to hold. "How can you choose him over me?"_

" _He doesn't ask me to bend heaven and earth for him, Tom," she said quietly, and his face contorted with fury, or envy, or in the wake of helpless wrath._

" _Do you think his love is virtuous simply because it is soft?" he demanded, his fingers cutting into the silk of her bodice. "He doesn't ask it of you," he snarled, "because he doesn't believe that you can—but I know better." His lips grazed the side of her neck, catching the motion of her heavy swallow. "I know better than anyone what you're made of, and I refuse to soften so that you can live a pretty lie."_

He'd come back a different person than he had been.

She'd always known it was only a matter of time before she could no longer stand the lack of him.

 **oOo**

She heard him coming before she saw him, her eyes closed as she leaned her head against the wall.

"That was unnecessary," she said flatly. "You're just showing off."

He chuckled, and her eyes fluttered open to find him carefully rolling the sleeves of his crisp white shirt, drawing it up over the span of his forearm.

"I was merely presenting you with options, Narcissa," he replied, effortlessly neutral.

"He won't understand why you've done it," she reminded him. "He thinks you share his beliefs; they all do," she warned. "They won't be able to make sense of it."

"Lucius is not a child," Tom said irritably. "It's not my job to discipline him in a way he understands. The only thing he needs to grasp is that he serves me unquestioningly, and that he is subject to whatever punishment or reward I deem him worthy of." He leaned forward, leaving only a breath's distance between her pounding heart and his. "Besides, he's far too arrogant—"

"Says the man who calls himself a Lord," murmured Narcissa, and Tom's lips twisted wryly.

"You know," he remarked, "to pity a man is not the same as to love him, Narcissa."

She waited; every moment she didn't speak was an ounce of power she wrested back.

But she was foolishly desperate, and aching, and there was only so much left for restraint.

"You know that I don't," she said, and a glint of satisfaction manifested in the blue of Tom's eyes.

"Tell me again," he beckoned in her ear, his fingers slowly drawing up the fabric of her dress, and she sighed, feeling the cool slip of his palm against her thigh.

"Tell you what?" she prompted. "You tell me often enough not to need reminding, don't you? That I belong to you."

She felt him smile; his hand tightened possessively around her leg.

"And do you?" he asked neutrally. "Do you belong to me, even when you're with him?"

She let out a sigh, feeling his breath on her neck.

"When I close my eyes," she remarked, "he almost looks like you."

His nails dug into her waist as he pressed his hips against hers, drawing her leg up.

"Aren't you tired of pretending, Narcissa?" Tom asked softly, intimately, and a sound that might have been equally _yes_ or _no_ or _Tom, please, deliver me_ slipped unbidden from her lips. "Haven't you fought it long enough?"

 _So what if I live a lie, Tom?_ she'd demanded of him, back when she thought she could resist his lure. _Your life is as much a lie as anything—_

 _This is not a lie,_ he'd said, and though lying was perhaps his greatest skill, she couldn't bring herself not to believe him. _One day you will tire of pretending, and you'll come to me, Narcissa. Call it a prophecy._

"Call this fulfillment, then," she whispered, and he shivered in her arms.

 **oOo**

She thought it would fade; even flames eventually die down, after all. Even wildfires burn out.

But for Tom, she was constantly ignited.

"I hate when you're gone from here," he said, pressing her back against the cold stone wall of his castle, the heat from the fireplace materializing in beads of sweat that clung to the places they touched. "I swear, even the waves miss you. They crash against the walls like they'd rather die than be without you."

"They always do that," she said, picturing the froth of the ocean tides outside the stained glass windows, the motion of them as steady and unyielding as his hips against hers. "I don't think I can take credit."

"I think it knows," he whispered to her. "It knows that I wouldn't be alive without you. This castle knows I would be nothing without you, Narcissa, and we suffer in your absence, brought to nothing again."

She bit hard on her tongue, not wanting to admit the truth; that it was she who suffered most in his absence, desperately pretending the silvery-blond head beside her at night was the raven-black she so badly desired, belonging to the man who toyed with her so easily she wondered if she were not part of his magic herself.

"Do you suffer, Tom?" she asked instead, yanking his head back and watching him hiss with pain, his tongue dragging slowly across his lip before it stretched into a darkly covetous smile.

"Show me," she whispered, and his eyes widened as he carried her to his bed, still unmade from the hours they'd spent there before.

What was perfunctory with Lucius—almost polite—was barbaric with Tom, and savage, and she relished the wild look in his blue eyes, the knowledge that he spent every waking moment craving her, refusing to relent for want of her. It was sex and it was carnal and it was love and it was magic, and there was no softness, no emptiness, only longing and rapture and ardor, fervor and fury, passion and pain.

He twined his fingers in her pale hair, holding it in his hands like streaks of moonlight.

"Narcissa," he said, worshipping her like he would an idol, like a deity, like power itself. "Will you keep my secrets?"

She kissed him, brutally, and half-laughed into his mouth.

"Don't I always?" she asked, as he dragged his lips against her neck.

"I granted myself eternity," he whispered in her ear, "and I want to spend all of it with you."

If it was love, she thought, then love wasn't a pretty bauble to be held in the light; instead, it flashed, it blazed, it blistered and seared, and if this was love, then she finally knew that love wasn't pretty at all. It was devastating, every clandestine sensation set alight, and love was a match set to burn.

She burned for him.

She loved him.

She burned for him.

 **oOo**

It wasn't only sex, though the Dark Lord's work—the furtive projects he continued, tucked away with her in his hidden castle rooms—had a similar sense of intimacy, of joining, to the point where sex and love and power were nearly indistinguishable.

"Magic is a function of many things," Tom said to her as they moved together, the slip of skin-against-skin as much a spell of its own as the words he spoke in her ear. "It's a language, a balance, a ritual. A connection between what flows in our blood," he said to the line of her neck, "and what beats in our hearts, the current of the world we inhabit. It's never merely spells and charms and enchantments. It's not something we heat over a fire and pour into a vial. Magic is elements of life, of death, of mortality. It's what we're made of, and what we create. It is everything and nothing, and _we_ are everything and nothing, and _you_ —"

He broke off with a gasp as she leaned her head against his chest, coiling her fingers in the hair at the base of his skull to rock rhythmically against him, delivering him to familiar sparks of madness.

"If we are the same as magic, then what am I to you, Tom?" she asked him, letting his lips travel hungrily over her neck. "Tell me," she commanded with another yank at his hair, reminding him he was hers to command.

He gripped her hips violently, leaving marks from the pressure of his fingers.

"You are a storm," he said, "and I am the wreckage. You are a reckoning, and I am the price. You are an angel, a demon, a witch and a goddess, and you," he growled in her ear, his hand spreading flat against her belly, "for all your power, are unequivocally _mine_."

"And what are you, Tom?" she asked. "If I am yours?"

"I'm a Lord beholden to a queen," he told her, biting down on her shoulder as she laughed.

"Good," she said, closing her eyes with satisfaction. "Good."

 **oOo**

"You seem distant tonight," Lucius said to the tension in her shoulders, eyeing her from across the bed. "More so than usual."

 _Tom_ , she thought, feeling the warmth of him, the thrill of him as he'd lain entwined with her, alternately stroking her hair, her arms, the line of her spine. _Tom, I don't want to always be this—I can't be a liar forever—_

 _So don't be,_ he said flatly. _Leave him._

 _I can't,_ she replied, though he'd already known as much, and disliked to hear it as much as she disliked relaying it. _Marriage vows, and besides, he wouldn't just let me go—_

 _Do you want me to do something about it?_ he asked carefully, and she'd frozen, considering the terrible lengths she'd go to have him and pleading herself to silence.

"Do I?" she asked her husband, feigning ignorance. "I suppose I'm tired."

"Oh," Lucius said, swallowing heavily. "I guess you don't want to, um—"

 _Is she pregnant yet?_ she'd heard Abraxas say; the haughty grouch of a man who was never quite careful enough to keep his voice down inside the Manor. _It's been long enough, Lucius. She's not meant to be some sort of trophy for you to take to the Dark Lord's castle. You gave her privilege, Lucius, and wealth, and now it's her turn to pay you back. She exists to give you Malfoy sons._

"We can," she said carefully, trying not to shudder at the thought. "If you want to."

"I do," he assured her, though she felt it again; the sense that he wasn't quite looking at her. Like he was distracted, absent, staring at the manifestation of his father's disappointment rather than the wife his own master so dutifully adored. She let him lift the silk of her nightgown; let him slide her underwear aside; let him mount her like some prized horse with favorable breeding and closed her eyes, resting her hands on his waist.

With her eyes closed, he could almost be Tom.

With her eyes closed, she could almost pretend.

It seemed she lived her whole life with her eyes closed, wandering in a daze until the Dark Lord's castle walls opened for her again, drawing her back into his arms.

 **oOo**

"Why bone?" she asked Tom, repressing a still-present repulsion. "Bone, blood, flesh. All of it is just so—"

"Morbid?" he guessed, and she shuddered in answer, prompting him to chuckle. "It's the closest I can get to imitating life, Narcissa. And last I checked, you weren't much a fan of human sacrifice."

"Not true," she reminded him, rising to her feet and sliding her hand across the span of his shoulder blades. "I sacrificed you, didn't I?"

"And I remain grateful you did," he permitted, drawing one shoulder upwards to skate his lips across her knuckles. "Though I wonder," he murmured, "if your limits have shifted in the time that's passed."

"What does that mean?" she asked. "You already know your horcruxes work. I can't imagine you'll risk another one just for experimentation."

"I don't mean me," he said, and she stiffened, frowning.

"Then what do you—"

"I meant it, Narcissa," he said. "When I said I wanted eternity with you. I intend for eternity itself, and therefore, so should you."

She froze, swallowing suddenly on disbelief, or air.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," he clarified, his blue eyes drifting to hers, "that you should have a horcrux."

He waited, watching her eyes widen.

"Breathe," he reminded her.

She inhaled.

"And?" he prompted.

She exhaled.

"Good," he said. "And I don't see why you're surprised. I couldn't bear to lose you, Narcissa, and I'm not a man to leave such things to chance. Obviously this was going to come up."

"But—" she began, and faltered, wondering how he could be so cavalier. "But don't you have to—to _murder_ someone?"

"Yes," he replied, without elaboration.

"Oh," she managed, discovering that a faint, indistinguishable ringing was suddenly present in her ears. "Well, then."

"Magic is magic," he reminded her, dragging her attention back to him. "It's a sacrifice, at its core. The more you require from it, the more you have to offer it. But surely some prices are more easily paid."

She blinked. "Easily?"

He sighed, turning towards her.

"Narcissa," Tom ventured, taking a few steps to take hold of her hands, the two of them standing in the same spot he'd once died in her arms. "Isn't there someone your life would be better off without? Someone," he added, "whose absence would give you the things you desire most? I'd give you power if you wanted it," he whispered. "Anything you wanted, Narcissa, I would give, if only you were free to take it."

"You—" she broke off, dizzied, as she processed what he'd said. "You want me to kill Lucius?"

She waited for him to say no.

She waited, breathless, for him to say no.

"Yes," he said, unsurprisingly. "It would resolve things rather neatly, wouldn't it?"

For a moment, she opened her mouth, certain a rational response would eventually formulate.

It didn't.

Instead she turned her head, vomiting abruptly on the floor.

 **oOo**

It wasn't only sex.

Some nights, like this one, he held her close, curling himself around her, and they watched the fire's shadow dance along the castle walls, the waves crashing recklessly outside.

Some nights, like this one, she half-remembered he was a man; felt him like a lover who might have been hers in another reality.

Perhaps one where he'd grasped for less, and didn't require a hereafter.

Perhaps one where she were willing to do more, and didn't fear retribution.

Perhaps it was a reality only breaths apart from this one, and no reality was too far away.

"Tell me a secret," she coaxed him, pleading for certainty, and he tightened his arms around her, holding her so firmly she winced from pain.

"I think if anyone can destroy me, it will be you," he said back.

For a moment, she wanted to laugh.

Instead she sat upright, forcing her eyes shut.

"What is it?" he asked, brushing his lips against her arm.

"I feel sick," she whispered, something twisting wretchedly in her soul.

* * *

 _ **1980  
**_ _ **Star Signs**_

"It isn't mine," Tom said flatly, and Narcissa didn't look up.

"No," she agreed. "It can't be."

"Why not?" he demanded, and she closed her eyes briefly.

"Because," she exhaled, "I knew you wouldn't want—"

"Wouldn't want _what_?" he cut in brusquely, and she glanced up, pursing her lips.

"Breathe," she warned him.

He inhaled, glaring at her.

"And?" she prompted.

He exhaled.

"Better," she said tartly, but he shook his head, pacing the floor.

"You used a spell," he said. "You used one for me, and not for him?"

"I couldn't with him," she said. "You know I couldn't."

He spun on his heel, staring at her.

"That," he growled, "should be _my_ child."

"You don't want a child," she reminded him dully.

"I don't want you to have his, either," he snapped.

She said nothing.

"Does this mean you've changed your mind?" he asked sharply. "Is that what you came to tell me? That after everything, you still—"

He broke off, furious and pained, and she rose to her feet, taking his face delicately between her fingers.

"Tom," she said. "Nothing has changed."

He swallowed moodily, blue eyes flashing with displeasure.

"I'm as much yours as I've ever been," she promised, but he stood still for a moment, stubbornly making her wait before gradually sliding his hands up her shoulders, raising her up for his kiss.

"And Lucius?" he asked, his expression going cold.

"When I close my eyes," she said, "he almost looks like you."

Tom grimaced. "Aren't you tired of pretending, Narcissa?" he asked her. "Haven't you fought it long enough?"

"Almost," she promised him. "Almost."

 **oOo**

"What about Abraxas, for my father," Lucius suggested, and Narcissa turned from her spot by the window, missing the sea breeze from Tom's castle. There, the walls themselves seemed to warm at her touch, humming indolently under her palms, and from there, the view, wherever she stood, was imminently breathtaking.

Here, though, everything was dull.

"No," she said. "I told you. A constellation, for my family."

Lucius hesitated before rising to his feet, approaching her tentatively.

"Cygnus?" he asked. "For your father?"

She shook her head, staring out the window at the clouded sky above.

"Not a swan," she said. "Something powerful. Unbreakable." She leaned her head back, watching a patch of clear sky come into view. "Something that can't be burned," she whispered, more to herself than to him, and Lucius stepped closer, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"Draco?" he suggested; warily, as if he thought she might argue. For once, though, she felt grateful that he'd understood.

She rested her hand on her stomach, wishing to exist in two moments at once.

"Draco," she whispered, feeling the baby kick.

 **oOo**

He was beautiful.

If this was love, she thought, then it was an indulgent one; a sweet one, a gentle, honeyed one, a lullaby on a summer breeze that was hummed amid the flowers, beneath the stars, and if this was love, then it was fragile and delicate and tiny, like the perfect fingers on the hands of her perfect son. It was soft and warm and close to her heart, and love was a child sleeping in her arms.

He looked precisely like his father, grey eyes and pale blond hair.

He looked unmistakably like his father.

She'd never seen Tom's blue eyes go so cold.

 **oOo**

It wasn't just sex.

Sometimes it was fighting, though at times, those things were indistinguishable too.

At times, like tonight, there was anger to the way he fucked her, and though it was good— _yes, Tom,_ so _good,_ always _so good, you fucking bastard, you're always so_ good—it was mean and rough and furious, and eventually he was left to stare at the line of her back as she picked her dress up from the floor, carefully mending the tear he'd ripped in the slit of her skirt.

"I don't want you to leave," he informed her flatly.

"I don't want to either," she reminded him, glancing over her shoulder, "but I have to, Tom. You've made it clear that you don't like it when I bring Draco here, and—"

"Don't," he snapped, flinching. "Don't talk about him."

She turned, perching beside him on the bed, and slipped a finger under his chin.

"Do you still want me, Tom?" she asked him. He leaned into her hand, pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist, and she sighed, letting him pull her into his chest. "Then be patient," she whispered to him. "Be patient."

He gripped her hand, the splintered lines on his palm closing around her fingers.

"You promised me forever," he reminded her, and she closed her eyes for a moment, taking a breath.

"I know," she told him. "I know."

 **oOo**

"Lucius?" she asked, opening her eyes to find him standing in the window frame, staring out at nothing. "I didn't know you were back. Is something wrong?"

He turned stiffly towards her, revealing a deep purple bruise across his face and slim tracings of marks that ran down the side of his neck, reaching like tendrils into the fabric of his shirt.

"Lucius," she gasped, unsteadily lurching to her feet, and he stared through her, haunted.

"You'll take care of our son, won't you?" he asked hoarsely. "If anything happens to me, you'll protect him?"

"Lucius, why—"

"Promise," he rasped. "I need you to promise."

"Yes, Lucius, of course, I'd never let anything happen to Draco, you know that—"

"I think he wants me dead," he said, half-babbling to himself. "I used to think he favored me, but now I think he hates me. I thought it was fatherhood alone, but he doesn't seem to bear any ill will towards Nott. He treats Crabbe and Goyle no differently. But _me_ —" he broke off, choking quietly, and Narcissa, lacking any better alternative, drew him into her lap, letting him curl up in her arms.

"He hates me, Narcissa, and I think he wants to kill me," Lucius whispered to her. "Sometimes I think he's killing me slowly just so he can watch."

"No," she said helplessly, though she wondered if it were true; she traced the lines along his neck, soothing the welts that led to his chest. "No, he—I'm sure that's not—"

"Take care of our son," Lucius said painfully. "I would die for him, Narcissa. Just promise me he'll be safe."

"You're not dying," Narcissa admonished, but felt a pang of guilt; she knew she could make no such promise. Not yet. "But you'll never have to worry, Lucius. I will always protect our son. I promise you that."

He closed his eyes, heaving a deep sigh.

"Thank you," he murmured.

She closed her eyes, too.

But this time, in her arms, she only felt his sorrow.

 **oOo**

"It's easy," Tom ranted, throwing a cauldron against the wall. "Brew him a poison. Cast a fucking spell. Throw together some hair and bone and venom into a fucking cauldron and just fucking _wish_ it," he snarled. "Just do whatever it fucking takes, Narcissa, to keep your fucking _promise_ —"

"Breathe," she snapped, and like the castle itself were suspended, he froze.

Inhaled.

Exhaled.

"You will not lose your temper like this," she warned him. "Not if you intend to keep me."

His mouth stiffened.

"You were supposed to always be mine," he said.

"You were supposed to always deserve me," she returned.

He curled one hand into a fist, pressing his lips to a thin, inarguable line.

"The decision to be rid of him is yours," he conceded. "I'll keep him alive. _If_ ," he added sourly, "that's really what you want."

"You have always asked me for everything, Tom," she reminded him. "I would hope that the autonomy of my own husband's murder might fall under the category of things I can safely request from you."

He scowled.

"You said you didn't love him," he accused.

"I don't," she replied. "But he's the father of my son, Tom, much as it pains you to hear it."

"It doesn't pain me," he spat. "It _incites_ me. It floods me with fury, with _rage_ , and I can hardly eat, hardly sleep, hardly _think_ for knowing what he is to you—"

"He will never be what you are to me," she said, stepping towards him. "Tom. No man will ever be what you are to me, I swear it."

He bent his head.

"I can't sleep," he mumbled. "I can't sleep. I can't sleep. I can't sleep."

Narcissa reached up, smoothing the hair from his forehead, and saw the lines under his eyes.

"Be patient," she whispered, pressing her lips to the furrowed span of his brow.

* * *

 _ **1981  
**_ _ **Sacrifice**_

It was impossible not to mark her son's growth with her lover's decline.

"Here," Tom said, thrusting something into her hands the same day Draco had first learned to smile at her, his little fingers playing with the light from her features. "I need to—to arrange things. To hide things. I want you to keep this," he instructed, eyes wild. "A diary. A horcrux. Another secret, Narcissa, if you'll keep this one too."

"Tom," she said slowly, glancing down at it. "Is everything—"

"Alright?" he guessed, blinking. "No, no, it isn't. Your swine of a husband cost me the goblins, the wolves are fucking lawless, the Ministry is breathing down my neck and _you_ , Narcissa," he barked, laughing humorlessly, "you exist to torment me. To dangle out of even my indomitable reach. Someday your son will be grown, you know," he added, still muttering to himself. "Someday he will be grown, and he will look and behave just like Lucius, and do you think he will serve me just as blindly, Narcissa?"

He stepped towards her, an eerie smile on his face as he watched her go rigid with fury.

"Do you think your son will kneel so reverently at my feet, Narcissa?" he asked darkly, and she slapped him so hard it stung them both, her palm buzzing with pain as his face glowed red from the pressure of it.

"Leave my son alone," she croaked, and he gave her a brilliant sneer, taking a step to press her back against the wall.

"I don't want your son," he snarled, the words slipping through desperately gritted teeth. "I want _you_ , Narcissa, and however long it takes, I'll wait. You told me to be patient," he reminded her. "I have more lives than you can possibly imagine to do so."

She closed her eyes, suffering a chill.

 _Breathe_ , she thought, and inhaled.

Exhaled.

"Is that a threat?" she finally asked, her eyes fluttering open, and the look on his face confirmed it.

"All things are sacrifice," he whispered to her. "What's a little more time, Narcissa, when I already possess it all?"

He kissed her then, laughing, and tasted of madness and delirium, a venom that burned at the roof of her mouth.

"You promised me eternity," he said between her lips, letting the consequence of a deal she'd made with a very different version of him stick to her teeth and twist her tongue to silence. "You promised me."

 _You're not the man I loved_ , she couldn't say, because she wasn't wholly sure it was true.

He crackled with power.

She sought out a plan.

 **oOo**

He'd always made magic seem so easy. She'd loved him first for that—for what he could do with it, as no other witch or wizard had ever done. As if it were a thing to call upon at will, an element in the air, a being that danced along the currents. He used it equally for beauty and pain and she'd loved him for it, admired him; watched him.

She collected things slowly, one by one.

She started with him.

His blood, firstly, which was easy to find, and easy to take. The castle let her in and helped her slip out, welcoming her and then sighing in her escape, lamenting her absence like a child denied its favorite toy.

The bone was more challenging. At first she thought to find his father's bones, but remembered that his own bones existed; this, too, the castle made easy to find, leading her to an unmarked grave where Tom had buried his own body, the grotesquely splintered dagger still left where she'd once dug it into his side. She slid a rib from the grave, tucking it carefully into her pocket.

She added a hair, too, plucking it from his pillow. It was still raven-black, as thick as a silken thread, and she rested it atop the bone and beside the blood, pondering what to do next.

She knew that sacrifice was important; he had sacrificed his secrets time and again, and he'd made it clear that magic was some sort of give and take, so while she had taken from him, she gave of herself. She added the flower of her namesake, winding her own silvery blonde hair around the stem. She added a rose, too, for her love; kept the thorns, for the faults in it.

A request of this magnitude, she knew, would require the thing she loved most in the world, and so when Draco stumbled, cutting his knee with a wail, she slid a drop of blood from him, too.

She knew it wouldn't be immediate; Tom had often said that time and place were as necessary to magic as any of the ingredients, and it was from an iteration of him in her past that she gleaned the perfect—the _only_ —opportunity.

 _Samhain,_ he'd once said, then-drawing her out into the crisp autumn air. _The doorways to the Otherworlds open for sacrifice, for offerings to the dead and the living, on the night we call Halloween._

Sacrifice, she thought, recalling his constant refrain.

Sacrifice.

She waited to make hers.

 **oOo**

"Tom," she said, watching him rustle back and forth across his bedroom floor. "Tom, listen to me—"

"I found them," he said, not looking at her. "The Potters. This prophecy is all but finished, and I'm going to take care of it tonight."

"Tom—"

"The entire thing is a thorn in my side," he muttered, his hands curled in frustration. "I've died and come back to live, I've ruled uncontested and without any conceivable opposition, and now I'm being threatened by a _child_? The whole thing is—"

"Tom," Narcissa interrupted, taking his face in her hands. "I have a secret for you."

He paused, glancing down at her.

"You do?" he asked.

She nodded.

"You told me once that your greatest fear was dying at the hands of someone who cared nothing for you," she reminded him, and though he didn't respond, she knew he still feared it, tension evident beneath her touch. "And you also told me you thought I would destroy you."

He stood still for a moment, contemplating her.

"Those aren't secrets," he said eventually and she gave him a small, tepid smile.

"The secret," she said, "is that you were right. And therefore you have nothing to fear, Tom," she murmured, "because when I destroy you, I will do it with pain and with love. I will destroy you the way that I have adored you; with passion. With sacrifice. With meaning." She paused, feeling him stiffen, and brought him close to her; so close she wondered if he could taste the terrible, twisted poison of her intentions. "I promised you eternity, Tom, and I meant it. I will spend eternity longing for what we could have been."

"Narcissa," he said gruffly. "What are you—"

"Breathe," she instructed, waiting.

He inhaled.

Exhaled.

"Good," she said, and when she knew he would have argued, she kissed him firmly instead, not letting him waste a moment; permitting him only the freedom to hold her in his grasp.

Their last time was frantic, half-clothed; it was panicked and restless, a tumultuous crash, not unlike the waves outside. She wondered if that was all they'd ever been; a crash of tides, always ebbing and advancing, desperately fighting their way back.

"Narcissa," he said when it was over, his hands still tangled in her hair. "You are a storm."

"We are both the wreckage," she promised him, and closed her eyes, committing him to memory.

 **oOo**

She took everything, bone and blood and thorns, and buried it outside his castle.

She waited for the earth to stake its claim.

"I love him," she said, sparing her final secret as her most important sacrifice; the closest to her heart. "I love him, and I can no longer allow him to love me. I know he'll come back," she whispered, half to herself, half to the waves that rose up against the rocky cliffs. "I know he'll come back, and I'll be waiting."

She inhaled.

Exhaled.

 _Good_ , she thought, satisfied.

* * *

She waited until she heard the news that he was gone.

Nobody could explain it, they said. Nobody knew where he had gone, or how, or why a boy— _a baby_ , younger even than her own son—had survived; but he was gone, and slowly, gradually, they exhaled their captive fear in his absence.

She didn't.

Not yet.

Instead she went to his castle and made her way to the battlements, letting the wind whip her memory around along with the tousled waves of her hair.

 _I know better than anyone what you're made of,_ he'd said to her once, and she heard his voice now, as clearly as if it carried on the wind.

"In the end," she whispered to him, "you never really knew, did you?"

He was gone now.

He was gone.

She was the one left standing.

"I won't let them destroy what you built," she said aloud, and true, he'd never asked her to make such a promise, but she felt she understood him by now. The castle would be seized by the Ministry, and she knew he wouldn't abide it; wouldn't be able to stand the thought of someone else possessing what he'd crafted himself, what he'd clung to—for power, for meaning, for love.

She could feel his familiar pulse in the stone beneath her feet, and she bent her hand to the cobbled ground, letting it recognize her touch.

"Time to go," she told the castle sadly. "Only he was meant for eternity."

There was a crack, then.

A rumble.

A foundation that sank, and she watched the pieces of his creation fall into the water one by one, diminishing to rubble and dropping into the restless sea below, burying his fallen kingdom under the waves.

When the only structure remaining was the stone beneath her feet, a narrow platform raised high above the sea, Narcissa closed her eyes, taking a breath and letting it out.

With her eyes closed, she could almost feel him.

With her eyes closed, she could almost pretend.

* * *

 _ **a/n:** Check out Aurora's edit that inspired this story on tumblr, and while you're at it, take a look at the cover she designed for my anthology of stories, **Fairytales of the Macabre** , at olivieblake dot com. If you enjoy this collection, you might enjoy those as well. Thank you for reading, and happy belated Halloween!_


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